FEMBAROM 


RANGES  HODGSON  BURNETT 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


Gift  of 
Mrs.  Leonora  B.  Lucas 


T.   TEMBAROM 


The  new  heir  arrives 


T.  TEMBAROM 


BY 
FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  SHUTTLE,"  "THE  SECRET 
GARDEN,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED  BY 

CHARLES  S.  CHAPMAN 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1913 


Copyright,  1913,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Published,  October,  1913 


rn 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

,The  new  heir  arrives Frontispiece 

FACING    PAGE 

"There,  Father,  love,  there!"  she  said 52 

She  took  her  seat  in  the  big  arm-chair  and  looked  at  him 

with  softly  examining  eyes 158 

"I  get  fonder  and  fonder  of  you  every  day,  Miss  Alicia"  .   258 

"Say,"  he  announced  with  affectionate  authority,  "you  sit 
down  right  away." 300 

"Th-at!"  he  cried.  "It  is— it— is  Miles  Hugo!"  .  .  .408 
"The  wire's  from  Sir  Ormsby  Galloway,  Pearson"  .  .  .  430 
"You  look  at  me,  Tern — and  see" 516 


S 

456543 


T.  TEMBAKOM 


T.  TEMBAROM 


CHAPTER  I 

HE  boys  at  the  Brooklyn  public  school  which 
he  attended  did  not  know  what  the  "T." 
stood  for.  He  would  never  tell  them.  All 
he  said  in  reply  to  questions  was :  "  It  don't 
stand  for  nothin'.  You've  gotter  have  a* 
'nitial,  ain't  you  ?  "  His  name  was,  in  fact, 
an  almost  inevitable  school-boy  modification 
of  one  felt  to  be  absurd  and  pretentious. 
His  Christian  name  was  Temple,  which  be 
came  "  Temp."  His  surname  was  Barom, 
so  he  was  at  once  "  Temp  Barom."  In  the  natural  tendency  to 
avoid  waste  of  time  it  was  pronounced  as  one  word,  and  the 
letter  p  being  superfluous  and  cumbersome,  it  easily  settled  itself 
into  "  Tembarom,"  and  there  remained.  By  much  less  inevitable 
processes  have  surnames  evolved  themselves  as  centuries  rolled 
by.  Tembarom  liked  it,  and  soon  almost  forgot  he  had  ever 
been  called  anything  else. 

His  education  really  began  when  he  was  ten  years  old.  At 
that  time  his  mother  died  of  pneumonia,  contracted  by  going 
out  to  sew,  at  seventy-five  cents  a  day,  in  shoes  almost  entirely 
without  soles,  when  the  remains  of  a  blizzard  were  melting  in 
the  streets.  As,  after  her  funeral,  there  remained  only  twenty- 
five  cents  in  the  shabby  bureau  which  was  one  of  the  few  arti 
cles  furnishing  the  room  in  the  tenement  in  which  they  lived 
together,  Tembarom  sleeping  on  a  cot,  the  world  spread  itself 
before  him  as  a  place  to  explore  in  search  of  at  least  one  meal  a 
day.  There  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  explore  it  to  the  best  of 
his  ten-year-old  ability. 

3 


4  T.  TEMBAROM 

'His  father  had  died  two  years  before  his  mother,  and  Tem- 
barom  had  vaguely  felt  it  a  relief.  He  had  been  a  resentful, 
domestically  tyrannical  immigrant  Englishman,  who  held  in 
contempt  every  American  trait  and  institution.  He  had  come 
over  to  better  himself,  detesting  England  and  the  English  be 
cause  there  was  "  no  chance  for  a  man  there,"  and,  transferring 
his  dislikes  and  resentments  from  one  country  to  another,  had 
met  with  no  better  luck  than  he  had  left  behind  him.  This 
he  felt  to  be  the  fault  of  America,  and  his  family,  which  was 
represented  solely  by  Tembarom  and  his  mother,  heard  a  good 
deal  about  it,  and  also,  rather  contradictorily,  a  good  deal  about 
the  advantages  and  superiority  of  England,  to  which  in  the 
course  of  six  months  he  became  gloomily  loyal.  It  was  neces 
sary,  in  fact,  for  him  to  have  something  with  which  to  compare 
the  United  States  unfavorably.  The  effect  he  produced  on 
Tembarom  was  that  of  causing  him,  when  he  entered  the  pub 
lic  school  round  the  corner,  to  conceal  with  determination  verg 
ing  on  duplicity  the  humiliating  fact  that  if  he  had  not  been 
born  in  Brooklyn  he  might  have  been  born  in  England.  Eng 
land  was  not  popular  among  the  boys  in  the  school.  History 
had  represented  the  country  to  them  in  all  its  tyrannical  ra 
pacity  and  bloodthirsty  oppression  of  the  humble  free-born. 
The  manly  and  admirable  attitude  was  to  say,  "  Give  me  lib 
erty  or  give  me  death  " —  and  there  was  the  Fourth  of  July. 

Though  Tembarom  and  his  mother  had  been  poor  enough 
while  his  father  lived,  when  he  died  the  returns  from  his  irregu 
lar  odd  jobs  no  longer  came  in  to  supplement  his  wife's  sewing, 
and  add  an  occasional  day  or  two  of  fuller  meals,  in  conse 
quence  of  which  they  were  oftener  than  ever  hungry  and  cold, 
and  in  desperate  trouble  about  the  rent  of  their  room.  Tem 
barom,  who  was  a  wiry,  enterprising  little  fellow,  sometimes 
found  an  odd  job  himself.  He  carried  notes  and  parcels 
when  any  one  would  trust  him  with  them,  he  split  old  boxes 
into  kindling-wood,  more  than  once  he  "  minded  "  a  baby  when 
its  mother  left  its  perambulator  outside  a  store.  But  at  eight 
or  nine  years  of  age  one's  pay' is  in  proportion  to  one's  size. 
Tembarom,  however,  had  neither  his  father's  bitter  eye  nor  his 
mother's  discouraged  one.  Something  different  from  either 


T.  TEMBAROM  5 

had  been  reincarnated  in  him  from  some  more  cheerful  past. 
He  had  an  alluring  grin  instead  —  a  grin  which  curled  up  his 
mouth  and  showed  his  sound,  healthy,  young  teeth, —  a  lot  of 
them, —  and  people  liked  to  see  them. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  world  it  is  only  recently  reasonable  to 
suppose  human  beings  were  made  with  healthy  bodies  and  healthy 
minds.  That  of  course  was  the  original  scheme  of  the  race. 
It  would  not  have  been  worth  while  to  create  a  lot  of  things 
aimlessly  ill  made.  A  journeyman  carpenter  would  not  waste 
his  time  in  doing  it,  if  he  knew  any  better.  Given  the  power 
to  make  a  man,  even  an  amateur  would  make  him  as  straight 
as  he  could,  inside  and  out.  Decent  vanity  would  compel  him 
to  do  it.  He  would  be  ashamed  to  show  the  thing  and  admit 
he  had  done  it,  much  less  people  a  world  with  millions  of  like 
proofs  of  incompetence.  Logically  considered,  the  race  was 
built  straight  and  clean  and  healthy  and  happy.  How,  since 
then,  it  has  developed  in  multitudinous  less  sane  directions,  and 
lost  its  normal  straightness  and  proportions,  I  am,  singularly 
enough,  not  entirely  competent  to  explain  with  any  degree  of 
satisfactory  detail.  But  it  cannot  be  truthfully  denied  that 
this  has  rather  generally  happened.  There  are  human  beings 
who  are  not  beautiful,  there  are  those  who  are  not  healthy, 
there  are  those  who  hate  people  and  things  with  much  waste 
of  physical  and  mental  energy,  there  are  people  who  are  not  un 
willing  to  do  others  an  ill  turn  by  word  or  deed,  and  there  are 
those  who  do  not  believe  that  the  original  scheme  of  the  race 
was  ever  a  decent  one. 

This  is  all  abnormal  and  unintelligent,  even  the  not  being 
beautiful,  and  sometimes  one  finds  oneself  called  upon  passion 
ately  to  resist  a  temptation  to  listen  to  an  internal  hint  that 
the  whole  thing  is  aimless.  Upon  this  tendency  one  may  as  well 
put  one's  foot  firmly,  as  it  leads  nowhere.  At  such  times  it  is 
supporting  to  call  to  mind  a  certain  undeniable  fact  which  ought 
to  loom  up  much  larger  in  our  philosophical  calculations.  No 
one  has  ever  made  a  collection  of  statistics  regarding  the  enor 
mous  number  of  perfectly  sane,  kind,  friendly,  decent  creatures 
who  form  a  large  proportion  of  any  mass  of  human  beings  any 
where  and  everywhere  —  people  who  are  not  vicious  or  cruel 


6  T.  TEMBAROM 

or  depraved,  not  as  a  result  of  continual  self-control,  but  sim 
ply  because  they  do  not  want  to  be,  because  it  is  more  natural 
and  agreeable  to  be  exactly  the  opposite  things;  people  who  do 
not  tell  lies  because  they  could  not  do  it  with  any  pleasure,  and 
would,  on  the  contrary,  find  the  exertion  an  annoyance  and  a 
bore;  people  whose  manners  and  morals  are  good  because  their 
natural  preference  lies  in  that  direction.  There  are  millions 
of  them  who  in  most  essays  on  life  and  living  are  virtually  ig 
nored  because  they  do  none  of  the  things  which  call  forth  elo 
quent  condemnation  or  brilliant  cynicism.  It  has  not  yet  become 
the  fashion  to  record  them.  When  one  reads  a  daily  news 
paper  filled  with  dramatic  elaborations  of  crimes  and  unpleas 
antness,  one  sometimes  wishes  attention  might  be  called  to  them 
—  to  their  numbers,  to  their  decencies,  to  their  normal  lack  of 
any  desire  to  do  violence  and  their  equally  normal  disposition 
to  lend  a  hand.  One  is  inclined  to  feel  that  the  majority  of 
persons  do  not  believe  in  their  existence.  But  if  an  accident 
occurs  in  the  street,  there  are  always  several  of  them  who  ap 
pear  to  spring  out  of  the  earth  to  give  human  sympathy  and 
assistance ;  if  a  national  calamity,  physical  or  social,  takes  place, 
the  world  suddenly  seems  full  of  them.  They  are  the  thou 
sands  of  Browns,  Joneses,  and  Eobinsons  who,  massed  together, 
send  food  to  famine-stricken  countries,  sustenance  to  earth 
quake-devastated  regions,  aid  to  wounded  soldiers  or  miners  or 
flood-swept  homelessness.  They  are  the  ones  who  have  hap 
pened  naturally  to  continue  to  grow  straight  and  carry  out  the 
First  Intention.  They  really  form  the  majority;  if  they  did 
not,  the  people  of  the  earth  would  have  eaten  one  another  alive 
centuries  ago.  But  though  this  is  surely  true,  a  happy  cyni 
cism  totally  disbelieves  in  their  existence.  When  a  combination 
of  circumstances  sufficiently  dramatic  brings  one  of  them  into 
prominence,  he  is  either  called  an  angel  or  a  fool.  He  is 
neither.  He  is  only  a  human  creature  who  is  normal. 

After  this  manner  Tembarom  was  wholly  normal.  He  liked 
work  and  rejoiced  in  good  cheer,  when  he  found  it,  however 
attenuated  its  form.  He  was  a  good  companion,  and  even  at 
ten  years  old  a  practical  person.  He  took  his  loose  coppers  from 
the  old  bureau  drawer,  and  remembering  that  he  had  several 


T.  TEMBAROM  7 

times  helped  Jake  Hutchins  to  sell  his  newspapers,  he  went 
forth  into  the  world  to  find  and  consult  him  as  to  the  invest 
ment  of  his  capital. 

"Where  are  you  goin',  Tern?"  a  woman  who  lived  in  the 
next  room  said  when  she  met  him  on  the  stairs.  "  What  you 
goin'  to  do  ?  " 

"  I  'm  goin'  to  sell  newspapers  if  I  can  get  some  with  this," 
he  replied,  opening  his  hand  to  show  her  the  extent  of  his 
resources. 

She  was  almost  as  poor  as  he  was,  but  not  quite.  She  looked 
him  over  curiously  for  a  moment,  and  then  fumbled  in  her 
pocket.  She  drew  out  two  ten-cent  pieces  and  considered  them, 
hesitating.  Then  she  looked  again  at  him.  That  normal  ex 
pression  in  his  nice  ten-year-old  eyes  had  its  suggestive  effect. 

"You  take  this,"  she  said,  handing  him  the  two  pieces. 
"  It  '11  help  you  to  start." 

"  I  '11  bring  it  back,  ma'am,"  said  Tern.  "  Thank  you,  Mis' 
Hullingworth." 

In  about  two  weeks'  time  he  did  bring  it  back.  That  was 
the  beginning.  He  lived  through  all  the  experiences  a  small 
boy  waif  and  stray  would  be  likely  to  come  in  contact  with. 
The  abnormal  class  treated  him  ill,  and  the  normal  class  treated 
him  well. .  He  managed  to  get  enough  food  to  eat  to  keep  him 
from  starvation.  Sometimes  he  slept  under  a  roof  and  much 
oftener  out-of-doors.  He  preferred  to  sleep  out-of-doors  more 
than  half  of  the  year,  and  the  rest  of  the  time  he  did  what  he 
could.  He  saw  and  learned  many  strange  things,  but  was  not 
undermined  by  vice  because  he  unconsciously  preferred  decency. 
He  sold  newspapers  and  annexed  any  old  job  which  appeared 
on  the  horizon.  The  education  the  New  York  streets  gave 
him  was  a  liberal  one.  He  became  accustomed  to  heat  and 
cold  and  wet  weather,  but  having  sound  lungs  and  a  tough  little 
body  combined  with  the  normal  tendencies  already  mentioned, 
he  suffered  no  more  physical  deterioration  than  a  young  Indian 
would  suffer.  After  selling  newspapers  for  two  years  he  got 
a  place  as  "  boy "  in  a  small  store.  The  advance  signified  by 
steady  employment  was  inspiring  to  his  energies.  He  forged 
ahead,  and  got  a  better  job  and  better  pay  as  he  grew  older. 


8  T.  TEMBAROM 

By  the  time  he  was  fifteen  he  shared  a  small  bedroom  with 
another  boy.  In  whatsoever  quarter  he  lived,  friends  seemed 
sporadic.  Other  boys  congregated  about  him.  He  did  not 
know  he  had  any  effect  at  all,  but  his  effect,  in  fact,  was  rather 
like  that  of  a  fire  in  winter  or  a  cool  breeze  in  summer.  It 
was  natural  to  gather  where  it  prevailed. 

There  came  a  time  when  he  went  to  a  night  class  to  learn 
stenography.  Great  excitement  had  been  aroused  among  the 
boys  he  knew  best  by  a  rumor  that  there  were  "  fellows  "  who 
could  earn  a  hundred  dollars  a  week  "writing  short."  Boy 
hood  could  not  resist  the  florid  splendor  of  the  idea.  Four  of 
them  entered  the  class  confidently  looking  forward  to  becom 
ing  the  recipients  of  four  hundred  a  month  in  the  course  of 
six  weeks.  One  by  one  they  dropped  off,  until  only  Tembarom 
remained,  slowly  forging  ahead.  He  had  never  meant  any 
thing  else  but  to  get  on  in  the  world  —  to  get  as  far  as  he 
could.  He  kept  at  his  "  short,"  and  by  the  time  he  was  nine 
teen  it  helped  him  to  a  place  in  a  newspaper  office.  He  took 
dictation  from  a  nervous  and  harried  editor,  who,  when  he  was 
driven  to  frenzy  by  overwork  and  incompetencies,  found  that 
the  long-legged,  clean  youth  with  the  grin  never  added  fuel 
to  the  flame  of  his  wrath.  He  was  a  common  young  man,  who 
was  not  marked  by  special  brilliancy  of  intelligence,  but  he  had 
a  clear  head  and  a  good  temper,  and  a  queer  aptitude  for  being 
able  to  see  himself  in  the  other  man's  shoes  —  his  difficulties 
and  moods.  This  ended  in  his  being  tried  with  bits  of  new 
work  now  and  then.  In  an  emergency  he  was  once  sent  out 
to  report  the  details  of  a  fire.  What  he  brought  back  was  usa 
ble,  and  his  elation  when  he  found  he  had  actually  "made 
good"  was  ingenuous  enough  to  spur  Galton,  the  editor,  into 
trying  him  again. 

To  Tembarom  this  was  a  magnificent  experience.  The  liter 
ary  suggestion  implied  by  being  "  on  a  newspaper "  was  more 
than  he  had  hoped  for.  If  you  have  sold  newspapers,  and  slept 
in  a  barrel  or  behind  a  pile  of  lumber  in  a  wood-yard,  to  report 
a  fire  in  a  street-car  shed  seems  a  flight  of  literature.  He  ap 
plied  himself  to  the  careful  study  of  newspapers  —  their  points 


T.  TEMBAROM  9 

of  view,  their  style  of  phrasing.  He  believed  them  to  be  per 
fect.  To  attain  ease  in  expressing  himself  in  their  elevated 
language  he  felt  to  be  the  summit  of  lofty  ambition.  He  had 
no  doubts  of  the  exaltation  of  his  ideal.  His  respect  and  con 
fidence  almost  made  Galton  cry  at  times,  because  they  recalled 
to  him  days  when  he  had  been  nineteen  and  had  regarded  New 
York  journalists  with  reverence.  He  liked  Tembarom  more 
and  more.  It  actually  soothed  him  to  have  him  about,  and  he 
fell  into  giving  him  one  absurd  little  chance  after  another. 
When  he  brought  in  "  stuff "  which  bore  too  evident  marks  of 
utter  ignorance,  he  actually  touched  it  up  and  used  it,  giving 
him  an  enlightening,  ironical  hint  or  so.  Tembarom  always 
took  the  hints  with  gratitude.  He  had  no  mistaken  ideas  of 
his  own  powers.  Galton  loomed  up  before  him  a  sort  of  god, 
and  though  the  editor  was  a  man  with  a  keen,  though  wearied, 
brain  and  a  sense  of  humor,  the  situation  was  one  naturally 
productive  of  harmonious  relations.  He  was  of  the  many  who 
unknowingly  came  in  out  of  the  cold  and  stood  in  the  glow  of 
Tembarom's  warm  fire,  or  took  refuge  from  the  heat  in  his 
cool  breeze.  He  did  not  know  of  the  private,  arduous  study  of 
journalistic  style,  and  it  was  not  unpleasing  to  see  that  the 
nice  young  cub  was  gradually  improving.  Through  pure  mod 
est  fear  or  ridicule,  Tembarom  kept  to  himself  his  vaulting 
ambition.  He  practised  reports  of  fires,  weddings,  and  acci 
dents  in  his  hall  bedroom. 

A  hall  bedroom  in  a  third-rate  boarding-house  is  not  a  cheer 
ful  place,  but  when  Tembarom  vaguely  felt  this,  he  recalled 
the  nights  spent  in  empty  trucks  and  behind  lumber-piles,  and 
thought  he  was  getting  spoiled  by  luxury.  He  told  himself 
that  he  was  a  fellow  who  always  had  luck.  He  did  not  know, 
neither  did  any  one  else,  that  his  luck  would  have  followed  him 
if  he  had  lived  in  a  coal-hole.  It  was  the  concomitant  of  his 
normal  build  and  outlook  on  life.  Mrs.  Bowse,  his  hard- 
worked  landlady,  began  by  being  calmed  down  by  his  mere 
bearing  when  he  came  to  apply  for  his  room  and  board.  She 
had  a  touch  of  grippe,  and  had  just  emerged  from  a  heated 
affray  with  a  dirty  cook,  and  was  inclined  to  battle  when  he 


10  T.  TEMBAROM 

presented  himself.  In  a  few  minutes  she  was  inclined  to  battle 
no  longer.  She  let  him  have  the  room.  Cantankerous  re 
strictions  did  not  ruffle  him. 

"  Of  course  what  you  say  goes,"  he  said,  giving  her  his 
friendly  grin.  "  Any  one  that  takes  boarders  has  got  to  be 
careful.  You  're  in  for  a  bad  cold,  ain't  you  ?  " 

"  I  've  got  grippe  again,  that 's  what  I  've  got,"  she  almost 
snapped. 

"  Did  you  ever  try  Payson's  (  G.  Destroyer '  ?  G  stands  for 
grippe,  you  know.  Catchy  name,  ain't  it?  They  say  the  man 
that  invented  it  got  ten  thousand  dollars  for  it.  *  GL  De 
stroyer.'  You  feel  like  you  have  to  find  out  what  it  means 
when  you  see  it  up  on  a  boarding.  I  'm  just  over  grippe  my 
self,  and  I  've  got  half  a  bottle  in  my  pocket.  You  carry  it 
about  with  you,  and  swallow  one  every  half-hour.  You  just 
try  it.  It  set  me  right  in  no  time." 

He  took  the  bottle  out  of  his  waistcoat  pocket  and  handed 
it  to  her.  She  took  it  and  turned  it  over. 

"  You  're  awful  good-natured," —  .She  hesitated, — "  but  I 
ain't  going  to  take  your  medicine.  I  ought  to  go  and  get  some 
for  myself.  How  much  does  it  cost  ?  " 

"  It 's  on  the  bottle ;  but  it 's  having  to  get  it  for  yourself 
that 's  the  matter.  You  won't  have  time,  and  you  '11  forget  it." 

"That's  true  enough,"  said  Mrs.  Bowse,  looking  at  him 
sharply.  "  I  guess  you  know  something  about  boarding- 
houses." 

"  I  guess  I  know  something  about  trying  to  earn  three  meals 
a  day  —  or  two  of  them.  It 's  no  merry  jest,  whichever  way 
you  do  it." 


CHAPTEK  II 


HEN  he  took  possession  of  his  hall  hedroom 
the  next  day  and  came  down  to  his  first  meal, 
all  the  boarders  looked  at  him  interestedly. 
They  had  heard  of  the  G.  Destroyer  from  Mrs. 
Bowse,  whose  grippe  had  disappeared.  Jim 
Bowles  and  Julius  Steinberger  looked  at  him 
because  they  were  about  his  own  age,  and 
shared  a  hall  bedroom  on  his  floor;  the  young 
woman  from  the  notion  counter  in  a  down-town 
department  store  looked  at  him  because  she 
was  a  young  woman;  the  rest  of  the  company  looked  at  him 
because  a  young  man  in  a  hall  bedroom  might  or  might  not  be 
noisy  or  objectionable,  and  the  incident  of  the  G.  Destroyer 
sounded  good-natured.  Mr.  Joseph  Hutchinson,  the  stout  and 
discontented  Englishman  from  Manchester,  looked  him  over  be 
cause  the  mere  fact  that  he  was  a  new-comer  had  placed  him  by 
his  own  rash  act  in  the  position  of  a  target  for  criticism.  Mr. 
Hutchinson  had  come  to  New  York  because  he  had  been  told 
that  he  could  find  backers  among  profuse  and  innumerable  multi 
millionaires  for  the  invention  which  had  been  the  haunting  vision 
of  his  uninspiring  life.  He  had  not  been  met  with  the  careless 
rapture  which  had  been  described  to  him,  and  he  was  becoming 
violently  antagonistic  to  American  capital  and  pessimistic  in  his 
views  of  American  institutions.  Like  Tembarom's  father,  he 
was  the  resentful  Englishman. 

"  I  don't  think  much  o'  that  chap/'  he  said  in  what  he  con 
sidered  an  undertone  to  his  daughter,  who  sat  beside  him  and 
tried  to  manage  that  he  should  not  be  infuriated  by  waiting 
for  butter  and  bread  and  second  helpings.  A  fine,  healthy  old 
feudal  feeling  that  servants  should  be  roared  at  if  they  did  not 
"  look  sharp  "  when  he  wanted  anything  was  one  of  his  salient 
characteristics. 

11 


12  T.  TEMBAROM 

"  Wait  a  bit,  Father ;  we  don't  know  anything  about  him 
yet/'  Ann  Hutchinson  murmured  quietly,  hoping  that  his  words 
had  been  lost  in  the  clatter  of  knives  and  forks  and  dishes. 

As  Tembarom  had  taken  his  seat,  he  had  found  that,  when 
he  looked  across  the  table,  he  looked  directly  at  Miss  Hutchin 
son;  and  before  the  meal  ended  he  felt  that  he  was  in  great 
good  luck  to  be  placed  opposite  an  object  of  such  singular  in 
terest.  He  knew  nothing  about  "  types,"  but  if  he  had  been  of 
those  who  do,  he  would  probably  have  said  to  himself  that  she 
was  of  a  type  apart.  As  it  was,  he  merely  felt  that  she  was  of  a 
kind  one  kept  looking  at  whether  one  ought  to  or  not.  She  was 
a  little  thing  of  that  exceedingly  light  slimness  of  build  which 
makes  a  girl  a  childish  feather-weight.  Few  girls  retain  it 
after  fourteen  or  fifteen.  A  wind  might  supposably  have  blown 
her  away,  but  one  knew  it  would  not,  because  she  was  firm  and 
steady  on  her  small  feet.  Ordinary  strength  could  have  lifted 
her  with  one  hand,  and  would  have  been  tempted  to  do  it. 
She  had  a  slim,  round  throat,  and  the  English  daisy  face  it 
upheld  caused  it  to  suggest  to  the  mind  the  stem  of  a  flower. 
The  roundness  of  her  cheek,  in  and  out  of  which  totally  unex 
pected  dimples  flickered,  and  the  forget-me-not  blueness  of 
her  eyes,  which  were  large  and  rather  round  also,  made  her 
look  like  a  nice  baby  of  singularly  serious  and  observing  mind. 
She  looked  at  one  as  certain  awe-inspiring  things  in  perambu 
lators  look  at  one  —  with  a  far  and  clear  silence  of  gaze  which 
passes  beyond  earthly  obstacles  and  reserves  a  benign  patience 
with  follies.  Tembarom  felt  interestedly  that  one  really  might 
quail  before  it,  if  one  had  anything  of  an  inferior  quality  to 
hide.  And  yet  it  was  not  a  critical  gaze  at  all.  She  wore  a 
black  dress  with  a  bit  of  white  collar,  and  she  had  so  much  soft, 
red  hair  that  he  could  not  help  recalling  one  or  two  women 
who  owned  the  same  quantity  and  seemed  able  to  carry  it  only 
as  a  sort  of  untidy  bundle.  Hers  looked  entirely  under  control, 
and  yet  was  such  a  wonder  of  burnished  fullness  that  it  tempted 
the  hand  to  reach  out  and  touch  it.  It  became  Tembarom's 
task  during  the  meal  to  keep  his  eyes  from  turning  too  often 
toward  it  and  its  owner. 

If  she  had  been  a  girl  who  took  things  hard,  she  might  have 


T.  TEMBAROM  13 

taken  her  father  very  hard  indeed.  But  opinions  and  feelings 
being  solely  a  matter  of  points  of  view,  she  was  very  fond  of 
him,  and,  regarding  him  as  a  sacred  charge  and  duty,  took 
care  of  him  as  though  she  had  been  a  reverentially  inclined 
mother  taking  care  of  a  boisterous  son.  When  his  roar  was 
heard,  her  calm  little  voice  always  fell  quietly  on  indignant  ears 
the  moment  it  ceased.  It  was  her  part  in  life  to  act  as  a  pal 
liative:  her  mother,  whose  well-trained  attitude  toward  the 
ruling  domestic  male  was  of  the  early  Victorian  order,  had 
lived  and  died  one.  A  nicer,  warmer  little  woman  had  never 
existed.  Joseph  Hutchinson  had  adored  and  depended  on  her 
as  much  as  he  had  harried  her.  When  he  had  charged  about 
like  a  mad  bull  because  he  could  not  button  his  collar,  or  find 
the  pipe  he  had  mislaid  in  his  own  pocket,  she  had  never  said 
more  than  "Now,  Mr.  Hutchinson,"  or  done  more  than  leave 
her  sewing  to  button  the  collar  with  soothing  fingers,  and  sug 
gest  quietly  that  sometimes  he  did  chance  to  carry  his  pipe 
about  with  him.  She  was  of  the  class  which  used  to  call  its 
husband  by  a  respectful  surname.  When  she  died  she  left  him 
as  a  sort  of  legacy  to  her  daughter,  spending  the  last  weeks  of 
her  life  in  explaining  affectionately  all  that  "  Father "  needed 
to  keep  him  quiet  and  make  him  comfortable. 

Little  Ann  had  never  forgotten  a  detail,  and  had  even  im 
proved  upon  some  of  them,  as  she  happened  to  be  cleverer  than 
her  mother,  and  had,  indeed,  a  far-seeing  and  clear  young  mind 
of  her  own.  She  had  been  called  "  Little  Ann  "  all  her  life. 
This  had  held  in  the  first  place  because  her  mother's  name  had 
been  Ann  also,  and  after  her  mother's  death  the  diminutive 
had  not  fallen  away  from  her.  People  felt  it  belonged  to  her 
not  because  she  was  especially  little,  though  she  was  a  small, 
light  person,  but  because  there  was  an  affectionate  humor  in  the 
sound  of  it. 

Despite  her  hard  needs,  Mrs.  Bowse  would  have  faced  the 
chance  of  losing  two  boarders  rather  than  have  kept  Mr.  Jo 
seph  Hutchinson  hut  for  Little  Ann.  As  it  was,  she  kept  them 
both,  and  in  the  course  of  three  months  the  girl  was  Little  Ann 
to  almost  every  one  in  the  house.  Her  normalness  took  the 
form  of  an  instinct  which  amounted  to  genius  for  seeing  what 


14  T.  TEMBAROM 

people  ought  to  have,  and  in  some  occult  way  filling  in  bare  or 
trying  places. 

"  She 's  just  a  wonder,  that  girl,"  Mrs.  Bowse  said  to  one 
boarder  after  another. 

"  She 's  just  a  wonder/'  Jim  Bowles  and  Julius  Steinberger 
murmured  to  each  other  in  rueful  confidence,  as  they  tilted 
their  chairs  against  the  wall  of  their  hall  bedroom  and  smoked. 
Each  of  the  shabby  and  poverty-stricken  young,  men  had  of 
course  fallen  hopelessly  in  love  with  her  at  once.  This  was 
merely  human  and  inevitable,  but  realizing  in  the  course  of 
a  few  weeks  that  she  was  too  busy  taking  care  of  her  irritable, 
boisterous  old  Manchester  father,  and  everybody  else,  to  have 
time  to  be  made  love  to  even  by  young  men  who  could  buy  new 
boots  when  the  old  ones  had  ceased  to  be  water-tight,  they  were 
obliged  to  resign  themselves  to  the,  after  all,  comforting  fact 
that  she  became  a  mother  to  them,  not  a  sister.  She  mended 
their  socks  and  sewed  buttons  on  for  them  with  a  firm  frank 
ness  which  could  not  be  persuaded  into  meaning  anything  more 
sentimental  than  a  fixed  habit  of  repairing  anything  which 
needed  it,  and  which,  while  at  first  bewildering  in  its  serenity, 
ended  by  reducing  the  two  youths  to  a  dust  of  devotion. 

"  She 's  a  wonder,  she  is,"  they  sighed  when  at  every  week 
end  they  found  their  forlorn  and  scanty  washing  resting  tidily 
on  their  bed. 

In  the  course  of  a  week,  more  or  less,  Tembarom's  feeling 
for  her  would  have  been  exactly  that  of  his  two  hall-bedroom 
neighbors,  but  that  his  nature,  though  a  practical  one,  was  not 
inclined  to  any  supine  degree  of  resignation.  He  was  a  sensi 
ble  youth,  however,  and  gave  no  trouble.  Even  Joseph  Hutch- 
inson,  who  of  course  resented  furiously  any  "  nonsense "  of 
which  his  daughter  and  possession  was  the  object,  became  suf 
ficiently  mollified  by  his  good  spirits  and  ready  good  nature  to 
refrain  from  open  conversational  assault. 

"I  don't  mind  that  chap  as  much  as  I  did  at  first,"  he  ad 
mitted  reluctantly  to  Little  Ann  one  evening  after  a  good  din 
ner  and  a  comfortable  pipe.  "  He 's  not  such  a  fool  as  he 
looks." 

Tembarom  was  given,  as  Little  Ann  was,  to  seeing  what  peo- 


T.  TEMBAROM  15 

pie  wanted.  He  knew  when  to  pass  the  mustard  and  other 
straying  condiments.  He  picked  up  things  which  dropped  in 
conveniently,  he  did  not  interrupt  the  remarks  of  his  elders 
and  betters,  and  several  times  when  he  chanced  to  be  in  the 
hall,  and  saw  Mr.  Hutchinson,  in  irritable,  stout  Englishman 
fashion,  struggling  into  his  overcoat,  he  sprang  forward  with 
a  light,  friendly  air  and  helped  him.  He  did  not  do  it  with 
ostentatious  politeness  or  with  the  manner  of  active  youth  giv 
ing  generous  aid  to  elderly  avoirdupois.  He  did  it  as  though 
it  occurred  to  him  as  a  natural  result  of  being  on  the  spot. 

It  took  Mrs.  Bowse  and  her  boarding-house  less  than  a  week 
definitely  to  like  him.  Every  night  when  he  sat  down  to  din 
ner  he  brought  news  with  him  —  news  and  jokes  and  new 
slang.  Newspaper-office  anecdote  and  talk  gave  a  journalistic 
air  to  the  gathering  when  he  was  present,  and  there  was  novelty 
in  it.  Soon  every  one  was  intimate  with  him,  and  interested 
in  what  he  was  doing.  Galton's  good-natured  patronage  of 
him  was  a  thing  to  which  no  one  was  indifferent.  It  was  felt 
to  be  the  right  thing  in  the  right  place.  When  he  came  home 
at  night  it  became  the  custom  to  ask  him  questions  as  to  the 
bits  of  luck  which  befell  him.  He  became  "  T.  T."  instead  of 
Mr.  Tembarom,  except  to  Joseph  Hutchinson  and  his  daughter. 
Hutchinson  called  him  Tembarom,  but  Little  Ann  said  "Mr. 
Tembarom''  with  quaint  frequency  when  she  spoke  to  him. 

"  Landed  anything  to-day,  T.  T.  ?  "  some  one  would  ask  al 
most  every  evening,  and  the  interest  in  his  relation  of  the  day's 
adventures  increased  from  week  to  week.  Little  Ann  never 
asked  questions  and  seldom  made  comments,  but  she  always 
listened  attentively.  She  had  gathered,  and  guessed  from  what 
she  had  gathered,  a  rather  definite  idea  of  what  his  hard  young 
life  had  been.  He  did  not  tell  pathetic  stories  about  himself, 
but  he  and  Jim  Bowles  and  Julius  Steinberger  had  become  fast 
friends,  and  the  genial  smoking  of  cheap  tobacco  in  hall  bed 
rooms  tends  to  frankness  of  relation,  and  the  various  ways  in 
which  each  had  found  himself  "up  against  it"  in  the  course 
of  their  brief  years  supplied  material  for  anecdotal  talk. 

"  But  it 's  bound  to  be  easier  from  now  on,"  he  would  say. 
"  I  've  got  the  '  short '  down  pretty  fine  —  not  fine  enough  to 


16  T.  TEMBAROM 

make  big  money,  but  enough  to  hold  down  a  job  with  Galton. 
He  'a  mighty  good  to  me.  If  I  knew  more,  I  believe  he  'd 
give  me  a  column  to  take  care  of  —  Up-town  Society  column 
perhaps.  A  fellow  named  Biker's  got  it.  Twenty  per.  Goes 
on  a  bust  twice  a  month,  the  fool.  Gee!  I  wish  I  had  his 
job!" 

Mrs.  Bowse's  house  was  provided  with  a  parlor  in  which  her 
boarders  could  sit  in  the  evening  when  so  inclined.  It  was  a 
fearsome  room,  which,  when  the  dark,  high-ceilinged  hall  was 
entered,  revealed  depths  of  dingy  gloom  which  appeared  splashed 
in  spots  with  incongruous  brilliancy  of  color.  This  effect  was 
produced  by  richly  framed  department-store  chromo  litho 
graphs  on  the  walls,  aided  by  lurid  cushion-covers,  or  "  tidies  " 
representing  Indian  maidens  or  chieftains  in  full  war  paint, 
or  clusters  of  poppies  of  great  boldness  of  hue.  They  had 
either  been  Christmas  gifts  bestowed  upon  Mrs.  Bowse  or  de 
partment-store  bargains  of  her  own  selection,  purchased  with 
thrifty  intent.  The  red-and-green  plush  upholstered  walnut 
chairs  and  sofa  had  been  acquired  by  her  when  the  bankruptcy 
of  a  neighboring  boarding-house  brought  them  within  her 
means.  They  were  no  longer  very  red  or  very  green,  and  the 
cheerfully  hopeful  design  of  the  tidies  and  cushions  had  been  to 
conceal  worn  places  and  stains.  The  mantelpiece  was  adorned 
by  a  black-walnut-and-gold-framed  mirror,  and  innumerable 
vases  of  the  ornate  ninety-eight-cents  order.  The  centerpiece 
held  a  large  and  extremely  soiled  spray  of  artificial  wistaria. 
The  end  of  the  room  was  rendered  attractive  by  a  tent-like 
cozy-corner  built  of  savage  weapons  and  Oriental  cotton  stuffs 
long  ago  become  stringy  and  almost  leprous  in  hue.  The  pro 
prietor  of  the  bankrupt  boarding-house  had  been  "artistic." 
But  Mrs.  Bowse  was  a  good-enough  soul  whose  boarders  liked 
her  and  her  house,  and  when  the  gas  was  lighted  and  some  one 
played  "rag-time"  on  the  second-hand  pianola,  they  liked  the 
parlor. 

Little  Ann  did  not  often  appear  in  it,  but  now  and  then  she 
came  down  with  her  bit  of  sewing, —  she  always  had  a  "  bit  of 
sewing," — and  she  sat  in  the  cozy-corner  listening  to  the  talk 
or  letting  some  one  confide  troubles  to  her.  Sometimes  it  was 


T.  TEMBAROM  17 

the  New  England  widow,  Mrs.  Peck,  who  looked  like  a  spinster 
school-ma'am,  but  who  had  a  married  son  with  a  nice  wife  who 
lived  in  Harlem  and  drank  heavily.  She  used  to  consult  with 
Little  Ann  as  to  the  possible  wisdom  of  putting  a  drink  deter 
rent  privately  in  his  tea.  'Sometimes  it  was  Mr.  Jakes,  a  de 
pressed  little  man  whose  wife  had  left  him,  for  no  special  rea 
son  he  could  discover.  Oftenest  perhaps  it  was  Julius  Stein- 
berger  or  Jim  Bowles  who  did  their  ingenuous  best  to  present 
themselves  to  her  as  energetic,  if  not  successful,  young  business 
men,  not  wholly  unworthy  of  attention  and  alwa}rs  breathing 
daily  increasing  devotion.  .Sometimes  it  was  Tembarom,  of 
whom  her  opinion  had  never  been  expressed,  but  who  seemed  to 
have  made  friends  with  her.  She  liked  to  hear  about  the 
newspaper  office  and  Mr.  Galton,  and  never  was  uninterested  in 
his  hopes  of  "making  good."  She  seemed  to  him  the  wisest 
and  most  direct  and  composed  person  he  had  ever  known.  She 
spoke  with  the  broad,  flat,  friendly  Manchester  accent,  and 
when  she  let  drop  a  suggestion,  it  carried  a  delightfully  sober 
conviction  with  it,  because  what  she  said  was  generally  a  revela 
tion  of  logical  mental  argument  concerning  details  she  had  gath 
ered  through  her  little  way  of  listening  and  saying  nothing 
whatever. 

"If  Mr.  Biker  drinks,  he  won't  k6ep  his  place/'  she  said  to 
Tembarom  one  night.  "  Perhaps  you  might  get  it  yourself,  if 
you  persevere." 

Tembarom  reddened  a  little.  He  really  reddened  through 
joyous  excitement. 

"  Say,  I  did  n't  know  you  knew  a  thing  about  that/'  he  an 
swered.  "You're  a  regular  wonder.  You  scarcely  ever  say 
anything,  but  the  way  you  get  on  to  things  gets  me." 

"  Perhaps  if  I  talked  more  I  should  n't  notice  as  much,"  she 
said,  turning  her  bit  of  sewing  round  and  examining  it.  "I 
never  was  much  of  a  talker.  Father  Js  a  good  talker,  and 
Mother  and  me  got  into  the  way  of  listening.  You  do  if  you 
live  with  a  good  talker." 

Tembarom  looked  at  the  girl  with  a  male  gentleness, 
endeavoring  to  subdue  open  expression  of  the  fact  that 
he  was  convinced  that  she  was  as  thoroughly  aware  of 


18  T.  TEMBAKOM 

her  father's  salient  characteristics  as  she  was  of  other  things. 

"  You  do,"  said  Tembarom.  Then  picking  up  her  scissors, 
which  had  dropped  from  her  lap,  and  politely  returning  them, 
he  added  anxiously :  "  To  think  of  you  remembering  Biker ! 
I  wonder,  if  I  ever  did  get  his  job,  if  I  could  hold  it  down?  " 

"  Yes,"  decided  Little  Ann ;  "  you  could.  I  've  noticed  you  're 
that  kind  of  person,  Mr.  Tembarom." 

"  Have  you  ?  "  he  said  elatedly.     "  Say,  honest  Injun  ?  " 

"Yes."' 

"  I  shall  be  getting  stuck  on  myself  if  you  encourage  me  like 
that,"  he  said,  and  then,  his  face  falling,  he  added,  "  Biker 
graduated  at  Princeton." 

"  I  don't  know  much  about  society,"  Little  Ann  remarked, — 
"  I  never  saw  any  either  up-town  or  down-town  or  in  the  coun 
try, —  but  I  shouldn't  think  you'd  have  to  have  a  college  edu 
cation  to  write  the  things  you  see  about  it  in  the  newspaper 
paragraphs." 

Tembarom  grinned. 

"  They  're  not  real  high-brow  stuff,  are  they,"  he  said. 
"'There  was  a  brilliant  gathering  on  Tuesday  evening  at  the 
house  of  Mr.  Jacob  Sturtburger  at  79  Two  Hundredth  Street 
on  the  occasion  of  the  marriage  of  his  daughter  Miss  Eachel 
Sturtburger  to  Mr.  Eichenstein.  The  bride  was  attired  in 
white  peau  de  cygne  trimmed  with  duchess  lace.' " 

Little  Ann  took  him  up.  "  I  don't  know  what  peau  de  cygne 
is,  and  I  daresay  the  bride  does  n't.  1  've  never  been  to  any 
thing  but  a  village  school,  but  I  could  make  up  paragraphs  like 
that  myself." 

"  That 's  the  up-town  kind,"  said  Tembarom.  "  The  down 
town  ones  wear  their  mothers'  point-lace  wedding-veils  some 
times,  but  they're  not  much  different.  Say,  I  believe  I  could 
do  it  if  I  had  luck." 

"  So  do  I,"  returned  Little  Ann. 

Tembarom  looked  down  at  the  carpet,  thinking  the  thing 
over.  Ann  went  on  sewing. 

"  That 's  the  way  with  you,"  he  said  presently :  "  you  put 
things  into  a  fellow's  head.  You've  given  me  a  regular  boost, 
Little  Ann." 


T.  TEMBAKOM  19 

It  is  not  unlikely  that  but  for  the  sensible  conviction  in  her 
voice  he  would  have  felt  less  bold  when,  two  weeks  later,  Biker, 
having  gone  upon  a  "  bust "  too  prolonged,  was  dismissed  with 
out  benefit  of  clergy,  and  Galton  desperately  turned  to  Tem 
barom  with  anxious  question  in  his  eye. 

"  Do  you  think  you  could  take  this  job  ?  "  he  said. 

Tembarom's  heart,  as  he  believed  at  the  time,  jumped  into 
his  throat. 

"What  do  you  think,  Mr.  Galton?"  he  asked. 

"  It  is  n't  a  thing  to  think  about/'  was  Galton's  answer. 
"  It 's  a  thing  I  must  be  sure  of." 

"  Well,"  said  Tembarom,  "  if  you  give  it  to  me,  I  '11  put  up  a 
mighty  hard  fight  before  I  fall  down." 

Galton  considered  him,  scrutinizing  keenly  his  tough,  long- 
built  body,  his  sharp,  eager,  boyish  face,  and  especially  his  com 
panionable  grin. 

"  We  '11  let  it  go  at  that,"  he  decided.  "  You  '11  make  friends 
up  in  Harlem,  and  you  won't  find  it  hard  to  pick  up  news.  We 
can  at  least  try  it." 

Tembarom's  heart  jumped  into  his  throat  again,  and  he  swal 
lowed  it  once  more.  He  was  glad  he  was  not  holding  his  hat 
in  his  hand  because  he  knew  he  would  have  forgotten  himself 
and  thrown  it  up  into  the  air. 

"  Thank  you,  Mr.  Galton,"  he  said,  flushing  tremendously. 
"  I  'd  like  to  tell  you  how  I  appreciate  your  trusting  me,  but  I 
don't  know  how.  Thank  you,  sir." 

When  he  appeared  in  Mrs.  Bowse's  dining-room  that  evening 
there  was  a  glow  of  elation  about  him  and  a  swing  in  his  entry 
which  attracted  all  eyes  at  once.  For  some  unknown  reason 
everybody  looked  at  him,  and,  meeting  his  eyes,  detected  the 
presence  of  some  new  exultation. 

"Landed  anything,  T.  T.?"  Jim  Bowles  cried  out.  "You 
look  it." 

"  Sure  I  look  it,"  Tembarom  answered,  taking  his  napkin 
out  of  its  ring  with  an  unconscious  nourish.  "  I  've  landed  the 
up-town  society  page  —  landed  it,  by  gee !  " 

A  good-humored  chorus  of  ejaculatory  congratulation  broke 
forth  all  round  the  table. 


20  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  Good  business !  "  "  Three  cheers  for  T.  T. !  "  "  Glad  of 
it !  "  "  Here 's  luck !  "  said  one  after  another. 

They  were  all  pleased,  and  it  was  generally  felt  that  Galton 
had  shown  sense  and  done  the  right  thing  again.  Even  Mr. 
Hutchinson  rolled  about  in  his  chair  and  grunted  his  approval. 

After-dinner  Tembarom,  Jim  Bowles,  and  Julius  Steinberger 
went  up-stairs  together  and  filled  the  hall  bedroom  with  clouds 
of  tobacco-smoke,  tilting  their  chairs  against  the  wall,  smok 
ing  their  pipes  furiously,  flushed  and  talkative,  working  them 
selves  up  with  the  exhilarated  plannings  of  youth.  Jim  Bowles 
and  Julius  had  been  down  on  their  luck  for  several  weeks,  and 
that  "good  old  T.  T."  should  come  in  with  this  fairy-story 
was  an  actual  stimulus.  If  you  have  never  in  your  life  been 
able  to  earn  more  than  will  pay  for  your  food  and  lodging, 
twenty  dollars  looms  up  large.  It  might  be  the  beginning  of 
anything. 

"  First  thing  is  to  get  on  to  the  way  to  do  it,"  argued  Tem 
barom.  "  I  don't  know  the  first  thing.  I  've  got  to  think  it 
out.  I  could  n't  ask  Biker.  He  would  n't  tell  me,  anyhow." 

"  He  's  pretty  mad,  I  guess,"  said  Steinberger. 

"  Mad  as  hops,"  Tembarom  answered.  "  As  I  was  coming 
down-stairs  from  Galton's  room  he  was  standing  in  the  hall 
talking  to  Miss  Dooley,  and  he  said:  'That  Tembarom  fel 
low  's  going  to  do  it !  He  does  n't  know  how  to  spell.  I  should 
like  to  see  his  stuff  come  in/  He  said  it  loud,  because  he 
wanted  me  to  hear  it,  and  he  sort  of  laughed  through  his  nose." 

"Say,  T.  T.,  can  you  spell?"  Jim  inquired  thoughtfully. 

"  Spell  ?  Me  ?  No,"  Tembarom  owned  with  unshaken  good 
cheer.  "What  I've  got  to  do  is  to  get  a  tame  dictionary  and 
keep  it  chained  to  the  leg  of  my  table.  Those  words  with  two 
m's  or  two  1's  in  them  get  me  right  down  on  the  mat.  But  the 
thing  that  looks  biggest  to  me  is  how  to  find  out  where  the  news 
is,  and  the  name  of  the  fellow  that  '11  put  me  on  to  it.  You 
can't  go  up  a  man's  front  steps  and  ring  the  bell  and  ask  him 
if  he  's  going  to  be  married  or  buried  or  have  a  pink  tea." 

"  Was  n't  that  a  knock  at  the  door  ?  "  said  Steinberger. 

It  was  a  knock,  and  Tembarom  jumped  up  and  threw  the 
door  open,  thinking  Mrs.  Bowse  might  have  come  on  some 


T.    TEMBAROM  21 

household  errand.  But  it  was  Little  Ann  Hutchinson  instead 
of  Mrs.  Bowse,  and  there  was  a  threaded  needle  stuck  into  the 
front  of  her  dress,  and  she  had  on  a  thimble. 

"  I  want  Mr.  Bowles's  new  socks/'  she  said  maternally.  "  I 
promised  I  'd  mark  them  for  him." 

Bowles  and  Steinberger  sprang  from  their  chairs,  and  came 
forward  in  the  usual  comfortable  glow  of  pleasure  at  sight  of 
her. 

"What  do  you  think  of  that  for  all  the  comforts  of  a 
home  ?  "  said  Tembarom.  "  As  if  it  was  n't  enough  for  a  man 
to  have  new  socks  without  having  marks  put  on  them!  What 
are  your  old  socks  made  of  anyhow  —  solid  gold?  Burglars 
ain't  going  to  break  in  and  steal  them." 

"  They  won't  when  I  've  marked  them,  Mr.  Tembarom,"  an 
swered  Little  Ann,  looking  up  at  him  with  sober,  round,  for 
get-me-not  blue  eyes,  but  with  a  deep  dimple  breaking  out  near 
her  lip;  "but  all  three  pairs  would  not  come  home  from  the 
wash  if  I  did  n't." 

"  Three  pairs !  "  ejaculated  Tembarom.  "  He  's  got  three 
pairs  of  socks !  New  ?  That 's  what 's  been  the  matter  with 
him  for  the  last  week.  Don't  you  mark  them  for  him,  Little 
Ann.  'Tain't  good  for  a  man  to  have  everything." 

"  Here  they  are,"  said  Jim,  bringing  them  forward.  "  Twen 
ty-five  marked  down  to  ten  at  Tracy's.  Are  they  pretty 
good?" 

Little  Ann  looked  them  over  with  the  practised  eye  of  a 
connoisseur  of  bargains. 

"  They  'd  be  about  a  shilling  in  Manchester  shops,"  she  de 
cided,  "  and  they  might  be  put  down  to  sixpence.  They  're 
good  enough  to  take  care  of." 

She  was  not  the  young  woman  who  is  ready  for  prolonged 
lively  conversation  in  halls  and  at  bedroom  doors,  and  she  had 
turned  away  with  the  new  socks  in  her  hand  when  Tembarom, 
suddenly  inspired,  darted  after  her. 

"  Say,  I  've  just  thought  of  something,"  he  exclaimed  eagerly. 
"  It 's  something  I  want  to  ask  you." 

"What  is  it?" 

"It's   about  the  society-page  lay-out."    He  hesitated.    "I 


22  T.    TEMBA110M 

wonder  if  it  'd  be  rushing  you  too  much  if  —  say,"  he  suddenly 
broke  off,  and  standing  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  looked 
down  at  her  with  anxious  admiration,  "  I  believe  you  just  know 
about  everything." 

"  No,  I  don't,  Mr.  Tembarom ;  but  I  'm  very  glad  about  the 
page.  Everybody 's  glad." 

One  of  the  chief  difficulties  Tembarom  found  facing  him 
when  he  talked  to  Little  Ann  was  the  difficulty  of  resisting  an 
awful  temptation  to  take  hold  of  her  —  to  clutch  her  to  his 
healthy,  tumultuous  young  breast  and  hold  her  there  firmly. 
He  was  half  ashamed  of  himself  when  he  realized  it,  but  he 
knew  that  his  venial  weakness  was  shared  by  Jim  Bowles  and 
Steinberger  and  probably  others.  She  was  so  slim  and  light 
and  soft,  and  the  serious  frankness  of  her  eyes  and  the  quaint 
air  of  being  a  sort  of  grown-up  child  of  astonishing  intelligence 
produced  an  effect  it  was  necessary  to  combat  with. 

"  What  I  wanted  to  say,"  he  put  it  to  her,  "  was  that  I  be 
lieve  if  you  'd  just  let  me  talk  this  thing  out  to  you  it  'd  do 
me  good.  I  believe  you  'd  help  me  to  get  somewhere.  I  've 
got  to  fix  up  a  scheme  for  getting  next  the  people  who  have 
things  happening  to  them  that  I  can  make  society  stuff  out 
of,  you  know.  Biker  did  n't  make  a  hit  of  it,  but,  gee !  I've  just 
got  to.  I  've  got  to." 

"  Yes,"  answered  Little  Ann,  her  eyes  fixed  on  him  thought 
fully  ;  "  you  've  got  to,  Mr.  Tembarom." 

"  There  's  not  a  soul  in  the  parlor.  Would  you  mind  coming 
down  and  sitting  there  while  I  talk  at  you  and  try  to  work 
things  out?  You  could  go  on  with  your  marking." 

She  thought  it  over  a  minute. 

"  I  '11  do  it  if  Father  can  spare  me,"  she  made  up  her  mind. 
"  I  '11  go  and  ask  him." 

She  went  to  ask  him,  and  returned  in  two  or  three  minutes 
with  her  small  sewing-basket  in  her  hand. 

"  He  can  spare  me,"  she  said.  "  He 's  reading  his  paper, 
and  does  n't  want  to  talk." 

They  went  down-stairs  together  and  found  the  room  empty. 
Tembarom  turned  up  the  lowered  gas,  and  Little  Ann  sat 
down  in  the  cozy-corner  with  her  work-basket  on  her  knee. 


T.    TEMBAKOM  23 

Tembarom  drew  up  a  chair  and  sat  down  opposite  to  her. 
She  threaded  a  needle  and  took  up  one  of  Jim's  new  socks. 

"  Now,"  she  said. 

"  It 's  like  this,"  he  explained.  "  The  page  is  a  new  deal, 
anyhow.  There  did  n't  used  to  be  an  up-town  society  column 
at  all.  It  was  all  Fifth  Avenue  and  the  four  hundred;  but 
ours  is  n't  a  fashionable  paper,  and  their  four  hundred  ain't 
going  to  buy  it  to  read  their  names  in  it.  They  'd  rather 
pay  to  keep  out  of  it.  Uptown 's  growing  like  smoke,  and 
there 's  lots  of  people  up  that  way  that  'd  like  their  friends 
to  read  about  their  weddings  and  receptions,  and  would  buy 
a  dozen  copies  to  send  away  when  their  names  were  in.  There  's 
no  end  of  women  and  girls  that  'd  like  to  see  their  clothes 
described  and  let  their  friends  read  the  descriptions.  They'd 
buy  the  paper,  too,  you  bet.  It  '11  be  a  big  circulation-increaser. 
It's  Galton's  idea,  and  he  gave  the  job  to  Biker  because  he 
thought  an  educated  fellow  could  get  hold  of  people.  But 
somehow  he  could  n't.  Seems  as  if  they  did  n't  like  him.  He 
kept  getting  turned  down.  The  page  has  been  mighty  poor — 
no  pictures  of  brides  or  anything.  Galton  's  been  sick  over  it. 
He  'd  been  sure  it  'd  make  a  hit.  Then  Biker 's  always  drink 
ing  more  or  less,  and  he  's  got  the  swell  head,  anyhow.  I  be 
lieve  that's  the  reason  he  couldn't  make  good  with  the  up- 
towners." 

"  Perhaps  he  was  too  well  educated,  Mr.  Tembarom,"  said 
Little  Ann.  She  was  marking  a  letter  J  in  red  cotton,  and 
her  outward  attention  was  apparently  wholly  fixed  on:  her 
work. 

"  Say,  now,"  Tembarom  broke  out,  "  there 's  where  you  come 
in.  You  go  on  working  as  if  there  was  nothing  but  that  sock 
in  New  York,  but  I  guess  you  've  just  hit  the  dot.  Perhaps 
that  was  it.  He  wanted  to  do  Fifth  Avenue  work  anyway,  and 
he  did  n't  go  at  Harlem  right.  He  put  on  Princeton  airs  when 
he  asked  questions.  Gee !  a  fellow  can't  put  on  any  kind  of  airs 
when  he 's  the  one  that 's  got  to  ask." 

"  You  '11  get  on  better,"  remarked  Little  Ann.  "  You  've  got 
a  friendly  way  and  you  've  a  lot  of  sense.  I  've  noticed  it." 

Her  head  was  bent  over  the  red  J  and  she  still  looked  at  it 


24  T.    TEMBAEOM 

and  not  at  Tembarom.  This  was  not  coyness,  but  simple,  calm 
absorption.  If  she  had  not  been  making  the  J,  she  would 
have  sat  with  her  hands  folded  in  her  lap,  and  gazed  at  the 
young  man  with  undisturbed  attention. 

"  Have  you  ?  "  said  Tembarom,  gratefully.  "  That  gives  me 
another  boost,  Little  Ann.  What  a  man  seems  to  need  most 
is  just  plain  twenty-cents-a-yard  sense.  Not  that  I  ever  thought 
I  had  the  dollar  kind.  I  'm  not  putting  on  airs/' 

"  Mr.  Galton  knows  the  kind  you  have.  I  suppose  that 's 
why  he  gave  you  the  page/'  The  words,  spoken  in  the  shrewd- 
sounding  Manchester  accent,  were  neither  flattering  nor  un 
flattering;  they  were  merely  impartial. 

"  Well,  now  I  've  got  it,  I  can't  fall  down,"  said  Tembarom. 
"  I  've  got  to  find  out  for  myself  how  to  get  next  to  the  people 
I  want  to  talk  to.  I  've  got  to  find  out  who  to  get  next  to." 

Little  Ann  put  in  the  final  red  stitch  of  the  letter  J  and 
laid  the  sock  neatly  folded  on  the  basket. 

"I've  just  been  thinking  something,  Mr.  Tembarom,"  she 
said.  "  Who  makes  the  wedding-cakes  ?  " 

He  gave  a  delighted  start. 

"  Gee !  "  he  broke  out,  "  the  wedding-cakes !  " 

"  Yes,"  Little  Ann  proceeded,  "  they  'd  have  to  have  wedding- 
cakes,  and  perhaps  if  you  went  to  the  shops  where  they  're  sold 
and  could  make  friends  with  the  people,  they  'd  tell  you  whom 
they  were  selling  them  to,  and  you  could  get  the  addresses  and 
go  and  find  out  things." 

Tembarom,  glowing  with  admiring  enthusiasm,  thrust  out 
his  hand. 

"  Little  Ann,  shake !  "  he  said.  "  You  've  given  me  the 
whole  show,  just  like  I  thought  you  would.  You  're  just  the 
limit." 

"  Well,  a  wedding-cake 's  the  next  thing  after  the  bride," 
she  answered. 

Her  practical  little  head  had  given  him  the  practical  lead. 
The  mere  wedding-cake  opened  up  vistas.  Confectioners  sup 
plied  not  only  weddings,  but  refreshments  for  receptions  and 
dances.  Dances  suggested  the  "  halls  "  in  which  they  were  held. 
You  could  get  information  at  such  places.  Then  there  were 


T.    TEMBAKOM  25 

the  churches,  and  the  florists  who  decorated  festal  scenes. 
Tembarom's  excitement  grew  as  he  talked.  One  plan  led  to 
another;  vistas  opened  on  all  sides.  It  all  began  to  look  so 
easy  that  he  could  not  understand  how  Biker  could  possibly 
have  gone  into  such  a  land  of  promise,  and  returned  embittered 
and  empty-handed. 

"He  thought  too  much  of  himself  and  too  little  of  other 
people,"  Little  Ann  summed  him  up  in  her  unsevere,  reason 
able  voice.  "That's  so  silly." 

Tembarom  tried  not  to  look  at  her  affectionately,  but  his 
voice  was  affectionate  as  well  as  admiring,  despite  him. 

"  The  way  you  get  on  to  a  thing  just  in  three  words ! "  he 
said.  "  Daniel  Webster  ain't  in  it." 

"  I  dare  say  if  you  let  the  people  in  the  shops  know  that  you 
come  from  a  newspaper,  it'll  be  a  help,"  she  went  on  with 
ingenuous  worldly  wisdom.  "  They  '11  think  it  '11  be  a  kind  of 
advertisement.  And  so  it  will.  You  get  some  neat  cards 
printed  with  your  name  and  Sunday  Earth  on  them." 

"  Gee !  "  Tembarom  ejaculated,  slapping  his  knee,  "  there  's 
another !  You  think  of  every  darned  thing,  don't  you  ?  " 

She  stopped  a  moment  to  look  at  him. 

"You'd  have  thought  of  it  all  yourself  after  a  bit,"  she 
said.  She  was  not  of  those  unseemly  women  whose  intention 
it  is  manifestly  to  instruct  the  superior  man.  She  had  been 
born  in  a  small  Manchester  street  and  trained  by  her  mother, 
whose  own  training  had  evolved  through  affectionately  discreet 
conjugal  management  of  Mr.  Hutchinson. 

"  Never  you  let  a  man  feel  set  down  when  you  want  him  to 
see  a  thing  reasonable,  Ann,"  she  had  said.  "You  never  get 
on  with  them  if  you  do.  They  can't  stand  it.  The  Almighty 
seemed  to  make  'em  that  way.  They  've  always  been  masters, 
and  it  don't  hurt  any  woman  to  let  'em  be,  if  she  can  help  'em 
to  think  reasonable.  Just  you  make  a  man  feel  comfortable 
in  his  mind  and  push  him  the  reasonable  way.  But  never  you 
shove  him,  Ann.  If  you  do,  he  '11  just  get  all  upset-like.  Me 
and  your  father  have  been  right-down  happy  together,  but  we 
never  should  have  been  if  I  had  n't  thought  that  out  before 
we  was  married  two  weeks.  Perhaps  it's  the  Almighty's  will, 


26  T.    TEMBAROM 

though  I  never  was  as  sure  of  the  Almighty's  way  of  thinking 
as  some  are." 

Of  course  Tembarom  felt  soothed  and  encouraged,  though  he 
belonged  to  the  male  development  which  is  not  automatically 
infuriated  at  a  suspicion  of  female  readiness  of  logic. 

"  Well,  I  might  have  got  on  to  it  in  time,"  he  answered, 
still  trying  not  to  look  affectionate,  "  but  I  've  no  time  to  spare. 
Gee !  but  I  'm  glad  you  're  here  !  " 

"  I  sha'n't  be  here  very  long."  There  was  a  shade  of  patient 
regret  in  her  voice.  "  Father  's  got  tired  of  trying  America. 
He  's  been  disappointed  too  often.  He  's  going  back  to  Eng 
land." 

"  Back  to  England !  "  Tembarom  cried  out  forlornly,  "  Oh 
Lord!  What  shall  we  all  do  without  you,  Ann?" 

"  You  '11  do  as  you  did  before  we  came,"  said  Little  Ann. 

"  No,  we  sha'n't.  We  can't.  I  can't  anyhow."  He  actually 
got  up  from  his  chair  and  began  to  walk  about,  with  his  hands 
thrust  deep  in  his  pockets. 

Little  Ann  began  to  put  her  first  stitches  into  a  red  B.  No 
human  being  could  have  told  what  she  thought. 

"  We  must  n't  waste  time  talking  about  that,"  she  said. 
"Let  us  talk  about  the  page.  There  are  dressmakers,  you 
know.  If  you  could  make  friends  with  a  dressmaker  or  two 
they  'd  tell  you  what  the  wedding  things  were  really  made 
of.  Women  do  like  their  clothes  to  be  described  right." 


CHAPTER  III 


IS  work  upon  the  page  began  the  following 
week.  When  the  first  morning  of  his  cam 
paign  opened  witfi  a  tumultuous  blizzard,  Jim 
Bowles  and  Julius  Steinberger  privately  sym 
pathized  with  him  as  they  dressed  in  company, 
but  they  heard  him  whistling  in  his  own  hall 
bedroom  as  he  put  on  his  clothes,  and  to  none 
of  the  three  did  it  occur  that  time  could  be 
lost  because  the  weather  was  inhuman.  Blind 
ing  snow  was  being  whirled  through  the  air  by 
a  wind  which  had  bellowed  across  the  bay,  and  torn  its  way 
howling  through  the  streets,  maltreating  people  as  it  went, 
snatching  their  breath  out  of  them,  and  leaving  them  gaspingly 
clutching  at  hats  and  bending  their  bodies  before  it.  Street-cars 
went  by  loaded  from  front  to  back  platform,  and  were  forced 
from  want  of  room  to  whizz  heartlessly  by  groups  waiting  anx 
iously  at  street  corners. 

Tembarom  saw  two  or  three  of  them  pass  in  this  way,  leav 
ing  the  waiting  ones  desperately  huddled  together  behind  them. 
He  braced  himself  and  whistled  louder  as  he  buttoned  his 
celluloid  collar. 

"  I  'm  going  to  get  up  to  Harlem  all  the  same,"  he  said. 
"  The  '  L '  will  be  just  as  jammed,  but  there  '11  be  a  place 
somewhere,  and  I  '11  get  it." 

His  clothes  were  the  outwardly  decent  ones  of  a  young  man 
who  must  perforce  seek  cheap  clothing-stores,  and  to  whom  a 
ten-dollar  "  hand-me-down "  is  a  source  of  exultant  rejoicing. 
With  the  aid  of  great  care  and  a  straight,  well-formed  young 
body,  he  managed  to  make  the  best  of  them ;  but  they  were  not  to 
be  counted  upon  for  warmth  even  in  ordinarily  cold  weather. 
His  overcoat  was  a  specious  covering,  and  was  not  infrequently 
odorous  of  naphtha. 

27 


28  T.   TEMBAEOM 

"You've  got  to  know  something  about  first  aid  to  the 
wounded  if  you  live  on  ten  per,"  he  had  said  once  to  Little 
Ann.  "  A  suit  of  clothes  gets  to  be  an  emergency-case  mighty 
often  if  it  lasts  three  years." 

"Going  up  to  Harlem  to-day,  T.  T.?"  his  neighbor  at  table 
asked  him  as  he  sat  down  to  breakfast. 

"  Eight  there,"  he  answered.  "  I  've  ordered  the  limousine 
round,  with  the  foot-warmer  and  fur  rugs/' 

"  I  guess  a  day  would  n't  really  matter  much,"  said  Mrs. 
Bowse,  good-naturedly.  "  Perhaps  it  might  be  better  to-mor 
row." 

"  And  perhaps  it  might  n't,"  said  Tembarom,  eating  "  break 
fast-food  "  with  a  cheerful  appetite.  "  What  you  can't  be  stone- 
cold  sure  of  to-morrow  you  drive  a  nail  in  to-day." 

He  ate  a  tremendous  breakfast  as  a  discreet  precautionary 
measure.  The  dark  dining-room  was  warm,  and  the  food  was 
substantial.  It  was  comfortable  in  its  way. 

"You'd  better  hold  the  hall  door  pretty  tight  when  you  go 
out,  and  don't  open  it  far,"  said  Mrs.  Bowse  as  he  got  up 
to  go.  "  There  's  wind  enough  to  upset  things." 

Tembarom  went  out  in  the  hall,  and  put  on  his  insufficient 
overcoat.  He  buttoned  it  across  his  chest,  and  turned  its  collar 
up  to  his  ears.  Then  he  bent  down  to  turn  up  the  bottoms  of 
his  trousers. 

"A  pair  of  arctics  would  be  all  to  the  merry  right  here," 
he  said,  and  then  he  stood  upright  and  saw  Little  Ann  coming 
down  the  staircase  holding  in  her  hand  a  particularly  ugly  tar 
tan-plaid  woolen  neck-scarf  of  the  kind  known  in  England  as 
a  "comforter." 

"If  you  are  going  out  in  this  kind  of  weather,"  she  said  in 
her  serene,  decided  little  voice,  "  you  'd  better  wrap  this  com 
forter  right  round  your  neck,  Mr.  Tembarom.  It 's  one  of 
Father's,  and  he  can  spare  it  because  he  's  got  another,  and, 
besides,  he  's  not  going  out." 

Tembarom  took  it  with  a  sudden  emotional  perception  of  the 
fact  that  he  was  being  taken  care  of  in  an  abnormally  luxurious 
manner. 

"Now,  I  appreciate  that,"  he  said.     "The  thing  about  you, 


T.    TEMBAKOM  29 

Little  Ann,  is  that  you  never  make  a  wrong  guess  about  what 
a  fellow  needs,  do  you  ?  " 

"  I  'm  too  used  to  taking  care  of  Father  not  to  see  things," 
she  answered. 

"  What  you  get  on  to  is  how  to  take  care  of  the  whole  world 
—  initials  on  a  fellow's  socks  and  mufflers  round  his  neck." 
His  eyes  looked  remarkably  bright. 

"  If  a  person  were  taking  care  of  the  whole  world,  he  'd  have 
a  lot  to  do/'  was  her  sedate  reception  of  the  remark.  "  You  'd 
better  put  that  twice  round  your  neck,  Mr.  Tembarom." 

She  put  up  her  hand  to  draw  the  end  of  the  scarf  over  his 
shoulder,  and  Tembarom  stood  still  at  once,  as  though  he  were 
a  little  boy  being  dressed  for  school.  He  looked  down  at  her 
round  cheek,  and  watched  one  of  the  unexpected  dimples  reveal 
itself  in  a  place  where  dimples  are  not  usually  anticipated.  It 
was  coming  out  because  she  was  smiling  a  small,  observing 
smile.  It  was  an  almost  exciting  thing  to  look  at,  and  he 
stood  very  still  indeed.  A  fellow  who  did  not  own  two  pairs 
of  boots  would  be  a  fool  not  to  keep  quiet. 

"  You  have  n't  told  me  I  ought  n't  to  go  out  till  the  blizzard 
lets  up,"  he  said  presently. 

"  No,  I  have  n't,  Mr.  Tembarom,"  she  answered.  "  You  're 
one  of  the  kind  that  mean  to  do  a  thing  when  they  've  made 
up  their  minds.  It  '11  be  a  nice  bit  of  money  if  you  can  keep 
the  page." 

"  Gallon  said  he  'd  give  me  a  chance  to  try  to  make  good," 
said  Tembarom.  "  And  if  it 's  the  hit  he  thinks  it  ought  to 
be,  he  '11  raise  me  ten.  Thirty  per.  Vanastorbilts  won't  be  in 
it.  I  think  I  '11  get  married,"  he  added,  showing  all  his  attrac 
tive  teeth  at  once. 

"  I  would  n't  do  that,"  she  said.  "  It  would  n't  be  enough  to 
depend  on.  New  York  's  an  expensive  place." 

She  drew  back  and  looked  him  over.  "  That  '11  keep  you 
much  warmer,"  she  decided.  "  Now  you  can  go.  I  've  been 
looking  in  the  telephone-book  for  confectioners,  and  I  've  written 
down  these  addresses."  She  handed  him  a  slip  of  paper. 

Tembarom  caught  his  breath. 

"  Hully  gee ! "  he  exclaimed,  "  there  never  were  two  of  you 


30  T.    TEMBAROM 

made !  One  used  up  all  there  was  of  it.  How  am  I  going  to 
thank  you,  anyhow  !  " 

"  I  do  hope  you  '11  be  able  to  keep  the  page,"  she  said.  "  I 
do  that,  Mr.  Tembarom." 

If  there  had  been  a  touch  of  coquetry  in  her  earnest,  sober, 
round,  little  face  she  would  have  been  less  distractingly  allur 
ing,  but  there  was  no  shade  of  anything  but  a  sort  of  softly 
motherly  anxiety  in  the  dropped  note  of  her  voice,  and  it  was 
almost  more  than  flesh  and  blood  at  twenty-five  could  stand. 
Tembarom  made  a  hasty,  involuntary  move  toward  her,  but 
it  was  only  a  slight  one,  and  it  was  scarcely  perceptible  before 
he  had  himself  in  hand  and  hurriedly  twisted  his  muffler 
tighter,  showing  his  teeth  again  cheerily. 

"  You  keep  on  hoping  it  all  day  without  a  let-up/'  he  said. 
"  And  tell  Mr.  Hutchinson  I  'm  obliged  to  him,  please.  Get 
out  of  the  way,  Little  Ann,  while  I  go  out.  The  wind  might 
blow  you  and  the  hat-stand  up-stairs." 

He  opened  the  door  and  dashed  down  the  high  steps  into  the 
full  blast  of  the  blizzard.  He  waited  at  the  street  corner  while 
three  overcrowded  cars  whizzed  past  him,  ignoring  his  signals 
because  there  was  not  an  inch  of  space  left  in  them  for  an 
other  passenger.  Then  he  fought  his  way  across  two  or  three 
blocks  to  the  nearest  "  L  "  station.  He  managed  to  wedge  him 
self  into  a  train  there,  and  then  at  least  he  was  on  his  way.  He 
was  thinking  hard  and  fast,  but  through  all  his  planning  the 
warm  hug  of  the  tartan  comforter  round  his  neck  kept  Little 
Ann  near  him.  He  had  been  very  thankful  for  the  additional 
warmth  as  the  whirling  snow  and  wind  had  wrought  their  will 
with  him  while  he  waited  for  the  cars  at  the  street  corner. 
On  the  "L"  train  he  saw  her  serious  eyes  and  heard  the 
motherly  drop  in  her  voice  as  she  said,  "I  do  hope  you'll  be 
able  to  keep  the  page.  I  do  that,  Mr.  Tembarom."  It  made 
him  shut  his  hands  hard  as  they  hung  in  his  overcoat  pockets 
for  warmth,  and  it  made  him  shut  his  sound  teeth  strongly. 

"Gee!  I've  got  to!"  his  thoughts  said  for  him.  "If  I 
make  it,  perhaps  my  luck  will  have  started.  When  a  man's 
luck  gets  started,  every  darned  thing 's  to  the  good." 

The  "  L  "  had  dropped  most  of  its  crowd  when  it  reached  the 


T.    TEMBAROM  31 

lip-town  station  among  the  hundredth  streets  which  was  his  des 
tination.  He  tightened  his  comforter,  tucked  the  ends  firmly 
into  the  front  of  his  overcoat,  and  started  out  along  the  plat 
form  past  the  office,  and  down  the  steep,  iron  steps,  already 
perilous  with  freezing  snow.  He  had  to  stop  to  get  his  breath 
when  he  reached  the  street,  but  he  did  not  stop  long.  He 
charged  forth  again  along  the  pavement,  looking  closely  at  the 
shop-windows.  There  were  naturally  but  few  passers-by,  and 
the  shops  were  not  important-looking;  but  they  were  open,  and 
he  could  see  that  the  insides  of  them  looked  comfortable  in  con 
trast  with  the  blizzard-ruled  street.  He  could  not  see  both  sides 
of  the  street  as  he  walked  up  one  side  of  the  block  without  com 
ing  upon  a  confectioner's.  He  crossed  at  the  corner  and  turned 
back  on  the  other  side.  Presently  he  saw  that  a  light  van  was 
standing  before  one  place,  backed  up  against  the  sidewalk  to 
receive  parcels,  its  shuddering  horse  holding  its  head  down  and 
bracing  itself  with  its  forelegs  against  the  wind.  At  any  rate, 
something  was  going  on  there,  and  he  hurried  forward  to  find 
out  what  it  was.  The  air  was  so  thick  with  myriads  of  madly 
flying  bits  of  snow,  which  seemed  whirled  in  all  directions  in 
the  air,  that  he  could  not  see  anything  definite  even  a  few 
yards  away.  When  he  reached  the  van  he  found  that  he  had 
also  reached  his  confectioner.  The  sign  over  the  window  read 
"  M.  Munsberg,  Confectionery.  Cakes.  Ice-Cream.  iWeddings, 
Balls  and  Receptions." 

"  Made  a  start,  anyhow,"  said  Tembarom. 

He  turned  into  the  store,  opening  the  door  carefully,  and 
thereby  barely  escaping  being  blown  violently  against  a  stout, 
excited,  middle-aged  little  Jew  who  was  bending  over  a  box 
he  was  packing.  This  was  evidently  Mr.  Munsberg,  who  was 
extremely  busy,  and  even  the  modified  shock  upset  his  tem 
per. 

"  Vhere  you  goin'  ?  "  he  cried  out.  "  Can't  you  look  vhere 
you  're  goin'  ?  " 

Tembarom  knew  this  was  not  a  good  beginning,  but  his 
natural  mental  habit  of  vividly  seeing  the  other  man's  point  of 
view  helped  him  after  its  usual  custom.  His  nice  grin  showed 
itself. 


32  T.  TEMBAROM 

"  I  was  n't  going ;  I  was  coming,"  he  said.  "  Beg  pardon. 
The  wind  's  blowing  a  hundred  miles  an  hour." 

A  good-looking  young  woman,  who  was  probably  Mrs.  Muns- 
berg,  was  packing  a  smaller  box  behind  the  counter.  Temba- 
rom  lifted  his  hat,  and  she  liked  it. 

"  He  did  n't  do  it  a  bit  fresh,"  she  said  later.  "  Kind  o'  nice." 
She  spoke  to  him  with  professional  politeness. 

"  Is  there  anything  you  want  ?  "  she  asked. 

Tembarom  glanced  at  the  boxes  and  packages  standing  about 
and  at  Munsberg,  who  had  bent  over  his  packing  again.  Here 
was  an  occasion  for  practical  tact. 

"  I  've  blown  in  at  the  wrong  time,"  he  said.  "  You  're  busy 
getting  things  out  on  time.  I  '11  just  wait.  Gee !  I  'm  glad 
to  be  inside.  I  want  to  speak  to  Mr.  Munsberg." 

Mr.  Munsberg  jerked  himself  upright  irascibly,  and  broke 
forth  in  the  accent  of  the  New  York  German  Jew. 

"  If  you  comin'  in  here  to  try  to  sell  somedings,  young  man, 
joost  you  let  that  same  vind  vat  blew  you  in  blow  you  right  out 
pretty  quick.  I  'm  not  buyin'  nodings.  I  'm  busy." 

"  I  'm  not  selling  a  darned  thing,"  answered  Tembarom,  with 
undismayed  cheer. 

"You  vant  someding?"  jerked  out  Munsberg. 

"  Yes,  I  want  something,"  Tembarom  answered,  "  but  it 's 
nothing  any  one  has  to  pay  for.  I  'm  only  a  newspaper  man." 
He  felt  a  glow  of  pride  as  he  said  the  words.  He  was  a  news 
paper  man  even  now.  "  Don't  let  me  stop  you  a  minute.  I  'm 
in  luck  to  get  inside  anywhere  and  sit  down.  Let  me  wait." 

Mrs.  Munsberg  read  the  Sunday  papers  and  revered  them. 
She  also  knew  the  value  of  advertisement.  She  caught  her 
husband's  eye  and  hurriedly  winked  at  him. 

"  It 's  awful  outside.  'T  won't  do  harm  if  he  waits  —  if 
he  ain't  no  agent,"  she  put  in. 

"  See,"  said  Tembarom,  handing  over  one  of  the  cards  which 
had  been  Little  Ann's  businesslike  inspiration. 

"T.  Tembarom.  New  York  Sunday  Earth,"  read  Muns 
berg,  rather  grudgingly.  He  looked  at  T.  Tembarom,  and  T. 
Tembarom  looked  back  at  him.  The  normal  human  friendliness 
in  the  sharp  boyish  face  did  it. 


T.    TEMBAROM  33 

"  Veil,"  he  said,  making  another  jerk  toward  a  chair,  "  if 
you  ain't  no  agent,  you  can  vait." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Tembarom,  and  sat  down.  He  had  made 
another  start,  anyhow. 

After  this  the  packing  went  on  fast  and  furious.  A  youth 
appeared  from  the  back  of  the  store,  and  ran  here  and  there 
as  he  was  ordered.  Munsberg  and  his  wife  filled  wooden  and 
cardboard  boxes  with  small  cakes  and  larger  ones,  with  sand 
wiches  and  salads,  candies  and  crystallized  fruits.  Into  the 
larger  box  was  placed  a  huge  cake  with  an  icing  temple  on  the 
top  of  it,  with  silver  doves  adorning  it  outside  and  in.  There 
was  no  mistaking  the  poetic  significance  of  that  cake.  Outside 
the  blizzard  whirled  clouds  of  snow-particles  through  the  air,  and 
the  van  horse  kept  his  head  down  and  his  forelegs  braced.  His 
driver  had  long  since  tried  to  cover  him  with  a  blanket  which 
the  wind  continually  tore  loose  from  its  fastenings,  and  flapped 
about  the  creature's  sides.  Inside  the  store  grew  hot.  There 
was  hurried  moving  about,  banging  of  doors,  excited  voices, 
irascible  orders  given  and  countermanded.  Tembarom  found 
out  in  five  minutes  that  the  refreshments  were  for  a  wedding 
reception  to  be  held  at  a  place  known  as  "  The  Hall,"  and  the 
goods  must  be  sent  out  in  time  to  be  ready  for  the  preparations 
for  the  wedding  supper  that  night. 

"  If  I  knew  how  to  handle  it,  I  could  get  stuff  for  a  column 
just  sitting  here,"  he  thought.  He  kept  both  eyes  and  ears 
open.  He  was  sharp  enough  to  realize  that  the  mere  sense  of 
familiarity  with  detail  which  he  was  gaining  was  material  in 
itself.  Once  or  twice  he  got  up  .and  lent  a  hand  with  a  box  in  his 
casual  way,  and  once  or  twice  he  saw  that  he  could  lift  some 
thing  down  or  up  for  Mrs.  Munsberg,  who  was  a  little  woman. 
The  natural  casualness  of  his  way  of  jumping  up  to  do  the 
things  prevented  any  suspicion  of  ofnciousness,  and  also  pre 
vented  his  waiting  figure  from  beginning  to  wear  the  air  of  a 
superfluous  object  in  the  way.  He  waited  a  long  time,  and  cir 
cumstances  so  favored  him  as  to  give  him  a  chance  or  so.  More 
than  once  exactly  the  right  moment  presented  itself  when  he 
could  interject  an  apposite  remark.  Twice  he  made  Munsberg 
laugh,  and  twice  Mrs.  Munsberg  voluntarily  addressed  him. 


34  T.    TEMBAROM 

At  last  the  boxes  and  parcels  were  all  carried  out  and  stored 
in  the  van,  after  strugglings  with  the  opening  and  shutting  of 
doors,  and  battlings  with  outside  weather. 

When  this  was  all  over,  Munsberg  came  back  into  the  store, 
knocking  his  hands  together  and  out  of  breath. 

"  Dot 's  all  right,"  he  said.  "  It  '11  all  be  there  plenty  time. 
Vouldn't  have  fell  down  on  that  order  for  tventy-vive  dollars. 
Dot  temple  on  the  cake  was  splendid.  Joseph  he  done  it  fine." 

"He  never  done  nothin'  no  finer/'  Mrs.  Munsberg  said. 
"  It  looked  as  good  as  anything  on  Fift'  Avenoo." 

Both  were  relieved  and  pleased  with  themselves,  their  store, 
and  their  cake-decorator.  Munsberg  spoke  to  Tembarom  in  the 
manner  of  a  man  who,  having  done  a  good  thing,  does  not  mind 
talking  about  it. 

"  Dot  was  a  big  order,"  he  remarked. 

"  I  should  smile,"  answered  Tembarom.  "  I  'd  like  to  know 
whose  going  to  get  outside  all  that  good  stuff.  That  wedding- 
cake  took  the  tart  away  from  anything  I  've  ever  seen.  Which 
of  the  four  hundred  's  going  to  eat  it  ?  " 

"  De  man  vot  ordered  dot  cake,"  Munsberg  swaggered,  "  he  's 
not  got  to  vorry  along  on  vun  million  nor  two.  He  owns  de 
biggest  brewery  in  New  York,  I  guess  in  America.  He 's 
Schwartz  of  Schwartz  &  Kapfer." 

"  Well,  he 's  got  it  to  burn !  "  said  Tembarom. 

"  He 's  a  mighty  good  man,"  went  on  Munsberg.  "  He 's 
mighty  fond  of  his  own  people.  He  made  his  first  money  in 
Harlem,  and  he  had  a  big  fight  to  get  it;  but  his  own  people 
vas  good  to  him,  an'  he 's  never  forgot  it.  He 's  built  a  fine 
house  here,  an'  his  girls  is  fine  girls.  De  vun 's  goin'  to  be 
married  to-night  her  name 's  Rachel,  an'  she  's  goin'  to  marry 
a  nice  feller,  Louis  Levy.  Levy  built  the  big  entertainment-hall 
vhere  the  reception 's  goin'  to  be.  It 's  decorated  vith  two  thou 
sand  dollars'  worth  of  bride  roses  an'  lilies  of  de  valley  an' 
smilax.  All  de  up-town  places  vas  bought  out,  an'  den  Schwartz 
vent  down  Fift'  Avenoo." 

The  right  moment  had  plainly  arrived. 

"  Say,  Mr.  Munsberg,"  Tembarom  broke  forth,  "  you  're  giv 
ing  me  just  what  I  wanted  to  ask  you  for.  I  'm  the  new  up- 


T.    TEMBAROM  35 

town  society  reporter  for  the  Sunday  Earth,  and  I  came 
in  here  to  see  if  you  would  n't  help  me  to  get  a  show  at  finding 
out  who  was  going  to  have  weddings  and  society  doings.  I 
did  n't  know  just  how  to  start." 

Munsberg  gave  a  sort  of  grunt.     He  looked  less  amiable. 

"  I  s'pose  you  're  used  to  nothin'  but  Fif  t'  Avenoo,"  he  said. 

Tembarom  grinned  exactly  at  the  right  time  again.  Not 
only  his  good  teeth  grinned,  but  his  eyes  grinned  also,  if  the 
figure  may  be  used. 

"Fifth  Avenue!"  he  laughed.  "There's  been  no  Fifth 
Avenue  in  mine.  I  'm  not  used  to  anything,  but  you  may  bet 
your  life  I  'm  going  to  get  used  to  Harlem,  if  you  people  '11 
let  me.  I  've  just  got  this  job,  and  I  'm  dead  stuck  on  it.  I 
want  to  make  it  go." 

"  He  's  mighty  different  from  Biker,"  said  Mrs.  Munsberg  in 
an  undertone. 

"  Vhere  's  dod  oder  feller  ? "  inquired  Munsberg.  "  He 
vas  a  damn  fool,  dot  oder  feller,  half  corned  most  de  time,  an' 
puttin'  on  Clarence  airs.  No  one  was  goin'  to  give  htm  nothin'. 
He  made  folks  mad  at  de  start." 

"  I  've  got  his  job,"  said  Tembarom,  "  and  if  I  can't  make 
it  go,  the  page  will  be  given  up.  It'll  be  my  fault  if  that 
happens,  riot  Harlem's.  There's  society  enough  up-town  to 
make  a  first-class  page,  and  I  shall  be  sick  if  I  can't  get  on  to 
it." 

He  had  begun  to  know  his  people.  Munsberg  was  a  good- 
natured,  swaggering  little  Hebrew. 

That  the  young  fellow  should  make  a  clean  breast  of  it  and 
claim  no  down-town  superiority,  and  that  he  should  also  have 
the  business  insight  to  realize  that  he  might  obtain  valuable 
society  items  from  such  a  representative  confectioner  as  M. 
Munsberg,  was  a  situation  to  incite  amiable  sentiments. 

"  Veil,  you  did  n't  come  to  de  wrong  place,"  he  said.  "  All  de 
biggest  things  comes  to  me,  an'  I  don't  mind  tellin'  you  about 
'em.  'T  ain't  goin'  to  do  no  harm.  Weddings  an'  things  dey 
ought  to  be  wrote  up,  anyhow,  if  dey 're  done  right.  It's 
good  for  business.  Vy  don't  dey  have  no  pictures  of  de  supper- 
tables?  Dot 'd  be  good." 


36  T.    TEMBAEOM 

"  There 's  lots  of  receptions  and  weddings  this  month,"  said 
Mrs.  Munsberg,  becoming  agreeably  excited.  "  And  there 's 
plenty  handsome  young  girls  that  'd  like  their  pictures  published. 

"  None  of  them  have  been  in  Sunday  papers  before,  and 
they'd  like  it.  The  four  Schwartz  girls  would  make  grand 
pictures.  They  dress  splendid,  and  their  bridesmaids  dresses 
came  from  the  biggest  place  in  Fift'  Avenoo." 

"  Say,"  exclaimed  Tembarom,  rising  from  his  chair,  "  I  'm 
in  luck.  Luck  struck  me  the  minute  I  turned  in  here.  If 
you  '11  tell  me  where  Schwartz  lives,  and  where  the  hall  is,  and 
the  church,  and  just  anything  else  I  can  use,  I  '11  go  out  and 
whoop  up  a  page  to  beat  the  band."  He  was  glowing  with 
exultation.  "  I  know  I  can  do  it.  You  've  started  me  off." 

Munsberg  and  his  wife  began  to  warm.  It  was  almost  as 
though  they  had  charge  of  the  society  page  themselves.  There 
was  something  stimulating  in  the  idea.  There  was  a  sugges 
tion  of  social  importance  in  it.  They  knew  a  number  of  people 
who  would  be  pleased  with  the  prospect  of  being  in  the  Sunday 
Earth.  They  were  of  a  race  which  holds  together,  and  they 
gave  not  only  the  names  and  addresses  of  prospective  enter 
tainers,  but  those  of  florists  and  owners  of  halls  where  parties 
were  given. 

Mrs.  Munsberg  gave  the  name  of  a  dressmaker  of  whom  she 
shrewdly  guessed  that  she  would  be  amiably  ready  to  talk  to  a 
society-page  reporter. 

"  That  Biker  feller,"  she  said,  "  got  things  down  all  wrong. 
He  called  fine  white  satin  '  white  mm's-veiling,'  and  he  left  out 
things.  Never  said  nothing  about  Miss  Lewishon's  diamond 
ring  what  her  grandpa  gave  her  for  a  wedding-present.  An'  it 
cost  two  hundred  and  fifty." 

"  Well,  I  'm  a  pretty  big  fool  myself,"  said  Tembarom,  "  but  I 
should  have  known  better  than  that." 

When  he  opened  the  door  to  go,  Mrs.  Munsberg  called  after 
him: 

"When  you  get  through,  you  come  back  here  and  tell  us 
what  you  done.  I  '11  give  you  a  cup  of  hot  coffee." 

He  returned  to  Mrs.  Bowse's  boarding-house  so  late  that  night 


T.    TEMBAEOM  37 

that  even  Steinberger  and  Bowles  had  ended  their  day.  The 
gas  in  the  hall  was  turned  down  to  a  glimmering  point,  and 
the  house  was  silent  for  the  night.  Even  a  cat  who  stole  to 
him  and  rubbed  herself  against  his  leg  miauwed  in  a  sort  of 
abortive  whisper,  opening  her  mouth  wide,  but  emitting  no 
sound.  When  he  went  cautiously  up  the  staircase  he  carried  his 
damp  overcoat  with  him,  and  hung  it  in  company  with  the  tar 
tan  muffler  close  to  the  heater  in  the  upper  hall.  Then  he  laid 
on  his  bedside  table  a  package  of  papers  and  photographs. 

After  he  had  undressed,  he  dropped  heavily  into  bed,  ex 
hausted,  but  elate. 

"  I  'm  dog-tired,"  he  said,  "  but  I  guess  I  've  got  it  going." 
And  almost  before  the  last  word  had  uttered  itself  he  fell  into 
the  deep  sleep  of  worn-out  youth. 


456543 


CHAPTER  IV 

,RS.  BOWSE'S  boarding-house  began  to  be 
even  better  pleased  with  him  than  before. 
He  had  stories  to  tell,  festivities  to  describe, 
and  cheerful  incidents  to  recount.  The 
boarders  assisted  vicariously  at  weddings  and 
wedding  receptions,  afternoon  teas  and 
dances,  given  in  halls.  "  Up-town  "  seemed 
to  them  largely  given  to  entertainment  and 
hilarity  of  an  enviably  prodigal  sort.  Mrs. 
Bowse's  guests  were  not  of  the  class  which  entertains  or  is  en 
tertained,  and  the  details  of  banquets  and  ball-dresses  and 
money-spending  were  not  uncheering  material  for  conversation. 
Such  topics  suggested  the  presence  and  dispensing  of  a  good  deal 
of  desirable  specie,  which  in  floating  about  might  somehow  reach 
those  who  needed  it  most.  The  impression  was  that  T.  Tem- 
barom  was  having  "  a  good  time."  It  was  not  his  way  to  relate 
any  incidents  which  were  not  of  a  cheering  or  laughter-inspiring 
nature.  He  said  nothing  of  the  times  when  his  luck  was  bad, 
when  he  made  blunders,  and,  approaching  the  wrong  people,  was 
met  roughly  or  grudgingly,  and  found  no  resource  left  but  to  beat 
a  retreat.  He  made  no  mention  of  his  experiences  in  the  blizzard, 
which  continued,  and  at  times  nearly  beat  breath  and  life  out  of 
him  as  he  fought  his  way  through  it.  Especially  he  told  no  story 
of  the  morning  when,  after  having  labored  furiously  over  the 
writing  of  his  "  stuff  "  until  long  after  midnight,  he  had  taken  it 
to  Galton,  and  seen  his  face  fall  as  he  looked  over  it.  To  battle 
all  day  with  a  blizzard  and  occasional  brutal  discouragements,  and 
to  sit  up  half  the  night  tensely  absorbed  in  concentrating  one's 
whole  mental  equipment  upon  the  doing  of  unaccustomed  work 
has  its  effect.  As  he  waited,  Tembarom  unconsciously  shifted 
from  one  foot  to  another,  and  had  actually  to  swallow  a  sort  of 
lump  in  his  throat. 

38 


T.    TEMBAROM  39 

"I  guess  it  won't  do,"  he  said  rather  uncertainly  as  Galton 
laid  a  sheet  down. 

Galton  was  worn  out  himself  and  harried  by  his  nerves. 

"  No,  it  won't,"  he  said ;  and  then  as  he  saw  Tembarom  move 
to  the  other  foot  he  added,  "  Not  as  it  is." 

Tembarom  braced  himself  and  cleared  his  throat. 

"  If,"  he  ventured  — "  well,  you  've  been  mighty  easy  on  me, 
Mr  Galton  —  and  this  is  a  big  chance  for  a  fellow  like  me.  If 
it 's  too  big  a  chance  —  why  —  that 's  all.  But  if  it 's  anything 
I  could  change  and  it  wouldn't  be  too  much  trouble  to  tell 
me—" 

"  There  '&  no  time  to  rewrite  it,"  answered  Galton.  "  It  must 
be  handed  in  to-morrow.  It 's  too  flowery.  Too  many  adjec 
tives.  I  've  no  time  to  give  you  — "  He  snatched  up  a  blue 
pencil  and  began  to  slash  at  the  paper  with  it.  "  Look  here  — 
and  here  —  cut  out  that  balderdash  —  cut  this  —  and  this  — 
oh, — "  throwing  the  pencil  down, — "you'd  have  to  cut  it  all 
out.  There 's  no  time."  He  fell  back  in  his  chair  with  a  hope 
less  movement,  and  rubbed  his  forehead  nervously  with  the  back 
of  his  hand.  Ten  people  more  or  less  were  waiting  to  speak  to 
him;  he  was  worn  out  with  the  rush  of  work.  He  believed  in 
the  page,  and  did  not  want  to  give  up  his  idea ;  but  he  did  n't 
know  a  man  to  hand  it  to  other  than  this  untrained,  eager  igno 
ramus  whom  he  had  a  queer  personal  liking  for.  He  was  no 
business  of  his,  a  mere  stenographer  in  his  office  with  whom 
he  could  be  expected  to  have  no  relations,  and  yet  a  curious 
sort  of  friendliness  verging  on  intimacy  had  developed  between 
them. 

"  There  'd  be  time  if  you  thought  it  would  n't  do  any  harm 
to  give  me  another  chance,"  said  Tembarom.  "  I  can  sit  up  all 
night.  I  guess  I  Ve  caught  on  to  what  you  don't  want.  I  've 
put  in  too  many  fool  words.  I  got  them  out  of  other  papers,  but 
I  don't  know  how  to  use  them.  I  guess  I  've  caught  on.  Would 
it  do  any  harm  if  you  gave  me  till  to-morrow  ?  " 

"  No,  it  would  n't,"  said  Galton,  desperately.  "  If  you  can't 
do  it,  there  's  no  time  to  find  another  man,  and  the  page  must  be 
cut  out.  It 's  been  no  good  so  far.  It  won't  be  missed.  Take 
it  along." 


40  T.    TEMBAEOM 

As  he  pushed  back  the  papers,  he  saw  the  photographs,  and 
picked  one  up. 

"  That  bride 's  a  good-looking  girl.  Who  are  these  others  ? 
Bridesmaids  ?  You  've  got  a  lot  of  stuff  here.  Biker  could  n't 
get  anything."  He  glanced  up  at  the  young  fellow's  rather  pale 
face.  "I  thought  you'd  make  friends.  How  did  you  get  all 
this?" 

"  I  beat  the  streets  till  I  found  it,"  said  Tembarom.  "  I  had 
luck  right  away.  I  went  into  a  confectionery  store  where  they 
make  wedding-cakes.  A  good-natured  little  Dutchman  and  his 
wife  kept  it,  and  I  talked  to  them  —  " 

"  Got  next  ?  "  said  Galton,  grinning  a  little. 

"  They  gave  me  addresses,  and  told  me  a  whole  lot  of  things. 
I  got  into  the  Schwartz  wedding  reception,  and  they  treated  me 
mighty  well.  A  good  many  of  them  were  willing  to  talk.  I  told 
them  what  a  big  thing  the  page  was  going  to  be,  and  I  —  well,  I 
said  the  more  they  helped  me  the  finer  it  would  turn  out.  I  said 
it  seemed  a  shame  there  should  n't  be  an  up-town  page  when  such 
swell  entertainments  were  given.  I  've  got  a  lot  of  stuff  there." 

Galton  laughed. 

"  You  'd  get  it,"  he  said.  "  If  you  knew  how  to  handle  it, 
you  'd  make  it  a  hit.  Well,  take  it  along.  If  it  is  n't  right  to 
morrow,  it 's  done  for." 

Tembarom  did  n't  tell  stories  or  laugh  at  dinner  that  even 
ing.  He  said  he  had  a  headache.  After  dinner  he  bolted  up 
stairs  after  Little  Ann,  and  caught  her  before  she  mounted  to  her 
upper  floor. 

"  Will  you  come  and  save  my  life  again  ?  "  he  said.  "  I  'm  in 
the  tightest  place  I  ever  was  in  in  my  life." 

"  I  '11  do  anything  I  can,  Mr.  Tembarom,"  she  answered,  and 
as  his  face  had  grown  flushed  by  this  time  she  looked  anxious. 
"  You  look  downright  feverish." 

"  I  've  got  chills  as  well  as  fever,"  he  said.  "  It 's  the  page. 
It  seems  like  I  was  going  to  fall  down  on  it." 

She  turned  back  at  once. 

"  No  you  won't,  Mr.  Tembarom,"  she  said.  "  I  'm  just  right- 
down  sure  you  won't." 

They  went  down  to  the  parlor  again,  and  though  there  were 


T.    TEMBAROM  41 

people  in  it,  they  found  a  corner  apart,  and  in  less  than  ten 
minutes  he  had  told  her  what  had  happened. 

She  took  the  manuscript  he  handed  to  her. 

"If  I  was  well  educated,  I  should  know  how  to  help  you," 
she  said,  "  but  I  've  only  been  to  a  common  Manchester  school. 
I  don't  know  anything  about  elegant  language.  What  are 
these  ?  "  pointing  to  the  blue-pencil  marks. 

Tembarom  explained,  and  she  studied  the  blue  slashes  with 
serious  attention. 

"Well,"  she  said  in  a  few  minutes,  laying  the  manuscript 
down,  "  I  should  have  cut  those  words  out  myself  if  —  if  you  'd 
asked  me  which  to  take  away.  They're  too  showy,  Mr.  Tem 
barom." 

Tembarom  whipped  a  pencil  out  of  his  pocket  and  held  it  out. 

"  Say,"  he  put  it  to  her,  "  would  you  take  this  and  draw  it 
through  a  few  of  the  other  showy  ones?" 

"  I  should  feel  as  if  I  was  taking  too  much  upon  myself,"  she 
said.  "  I  don't  know  anything  about  it." 

"You  know  a  darned  sight  more  than  I  do,"  Tembarom 
argued.  "  I  did  n't  know  they  were  showy.  I  thought  they  were 
the  kind  you  had  to  put  in  newspaper  stuff." 

She  held  the  sheets  of  paper  on  her  knee,  and  bent  her  head 
over  them/  Tembarom  watched  her  dimples  flash  in  and  out  as 
she  worked  away  like  a  child  correcting  an  exercise.  Presently 
he  saw  she  was  quite  absorbed.  Sometimes  she  stopped  and 
thought,  pressing  her  lips  together;  sometimes  she  changed  a 
letter.  There  was  no  lightness  in  her  manner.  A  badly  muti 
lated  stocking  would  have  claimed  her  attention  in  the  same  way. 

"  I  think  I  'd  put  l  house '  there  instead  of  '  mansion '  if  I 
were  you,"  she  suggested  once. 

"  Put  in  a  whole  block  of  houses  if  you  like,"  he  answered 
gratefully.  "Whatever  you  say  goes.  I  believe  Galton  would 
say  the  same  thing." 

She  went  over  sheet  after  sheet,  and  though  she  knew  noth 
ing  about  it,  she  cut  out  just  what  Galton  would  have  cut  out. 
She  put  the  papers  together  at  last  and  gave  them  back  to 
Tembarom,  getting  up  from  her  seat. 

"  I  must  go  back  to  father  now,"  she  said.     "  I  promised  to 


42  T.   TEMBAROM 

make  him  a  good  cup  of  coffee  over  the  little  oil-stove.  If 
you  '11  come  and  knock  at  the  door  I  '11  give  you  one.  It  will 
help  you  to  keep  fresh  while  you  work." 

Tembarom  did  not  go  to  bed  at  all  that  night,  and  he  looked 
rather  fagged  the  next  morning  when  he  handed  back  the 
"stuff"  entirely  rewritten.  He  swallowed  several  times  quite 
hard  as  he  waited  for  the  final  verdict. 

"You  did  catch  on  to  what  I  didn't  want/'  Galton  said  at 
last.  "You  will  catch  on  still  more  as  you  get  used  to  the 
work.  And  you  did  get  the  '  stuff,' " 

"  That  —  you  mean  —  that  goes  ?  "  Tembarom  stammered. 

"  Yes,  it  goes,"  answered  Galton.  "  You  can  turn  it  in. 
We  '11  try  the  page  for  a  month." 

"  Gee !  Thank  the  Lord ! "  said  Tembarom,  and  then  he 
laughed  an  excited  boyish  laugh,  and  the  blood  came  back  to 
his  face.  He  had  a  whole  month  before  him,  and  if  he  had 
caught  on  as  soon  as  this,  a  month  would  teach  him  a  lot. 

He  'd  work  like  a  dog. 

He  worked  like  a  healthy  young  man  impelled  by  a  huge 
enthusiasm,  and  seeing  ahead  of  him  something  he  had  had  no 
practical  reason  for  aspiring  to.  He  went  out  in  all  weathers 
and  stayed  out  to  all  hours.  Whatsoever  rebuffs  or  difficulties 
he  met  with  he  never  was  even  on  the  verge  of  losing  his  nerve. 
He  actually  enjoyed  himself  tremendously  at  times.  He  made 
friends:  people  began  to  like  to  see  him.  The  Munsbergs  re 
garded  him  as  an  inspiration  of  their  own. 

"  He  seen  my  name  over  de  store  and  come  in  here  first  time 
he  vas  sent  up  dis  vay  to  look  for  t'ings  to  write,"  Mr.  Muns- 
berg  always  explained.  "Ve  vas  awful  busy  —  time  of  the 
Schwartz  vedding,  an'  dere  vas  dat  blizzard.  He  owned  up  he 
vas  new,  an'  vanted  some  vun  vhat  knew  to  tell  him  vhat  vas 
goin'  on.  'Course  I  could  do  it.  Me  an'  my  vife  give  him 
addresses  an'  a  lot  of  items.  He  vorked  'em  up  good.  Dot 
tip-town  page  is  gettin'  first-rate.  He  says  he  don'  know  vhat 
he  'd  have  done  if  he  had  n't  turned  up  here  dot  day." 

Tembarom,  having  "  caught  on  "  to  his  fault  of  style,  applied 
himself  with  vigor  to  elimination.  He  kept  his  tame  dictionary 
chained  to  the  leg  of  his  table  —  an  old  kitchen  table  which  Mrs. 


T.    TEMBAEOM  43 

Bowse  scrubbed  and  put  into  his  hall  bedroom,  overcrowding 
it  greatly.  He  turned  to  Little  Ann  at  moments  of  desperate  un 
certainty,  but  he  was  man  enough  to  do  his  work  himself.  In 
glorious  moments  when  he  was  rather  sure  that  Galton  was  far 
from  unsatisfied  with  his  progress,  and  Ann  had  looked  more 
than  usually  distracting  in  her  aloof  and  sober  alluringness, — 
it  was  her  entire  aloofness  which  so  stirred  his  blood, —  he 
sometimes  stopped  scribbling  and  lost  his  head  for  a  minute  or 
so,  wondering  if  a  fellow  ever  could  "  get  away  with  it "  to  the 
extent  of  making  enough  to  —  but  he  always  pulled  himself  up 
in  time. 

"  Nice  fool  I  look,  thinking  that  way !  "  he  would  say  to  him 
self.  "  She  'd  throw  me  down  hard  if  she  knew.  But,  my  Lord ! 
ain't  she  just  a  peach ! " 

It  was  in  the  last  week  of  the  month  of  trial  which  was  to 
decide  the  permanency  of  the  page  that  he  came  upon  the  man 
Mrs.  Bowse's  boarders  called  his  "  Freak."  He  never  called 
him  a  "freak"  himself  even  at  the  first.  Even  his  somewhat 
undeveloped  mind  felt  itself  confronted  at  the  outset  with  some 
thing  too  abnormal  and  serious,  something  with  a  suggestion  of 
the  weird  and  tragic  in  it. 

In  this  wise  it  came  about : 

The  week  had  begun  with  another  blizzard,  which  after  the 
second  day  had  suddenly  changed  its  mind,  and  turned  into  sleet 
and  rain  which  filled  the  streets  with  melted  snow,  and  made 
walking  a  fearsome  thing.  Tembarom  had  plenty  of  walking 
to  do.  This  week's  page  was  his  great  effort,  and  was  to  be  a 
"  dandy."  Galton  must  be  shown  what  pertinacity  could  do. 

"  I  'm  going  to  get  into  it  up  to  my  neck,  and  then  strike  out," 
he  said  at  breakfast  on  Monday  morning. 

Thursday  was  his  most  strenuous  day.  The  weather  had  de 
cided  to  change  again,  and  gusts  of  sleet  were  being  driven  about, 
which  added  cold  to  sloppiness.  He  had  found  it  difficult  to  get 
hold  of  some  details  he  specially  wanted.  Two  important  and 
extremely  good-looking  brides  had  refused  to  see  him  because 
Biker  had  enraged  them  in  his  day.  He  had  slighted  the  descrip 
tion  of  their  dresses  at  a  dance  where  they  had  been  the  observed 
of  all  observers,  and  had  worn  things  brought  from  Paris.  Tern- 


44  T.    TEMBAROM 

barom  had  gone  from  house  to  house.  He  had  even  searched 
out  aunts  whose  favor  he  had  won  professionally.  He  had 
appealed  to  his  dressmaker,  whose  affection  he  had  by  that  time 
fully  gained.  She  was  doing  work  in  the  brides'  nouses,  and 
could  make  it  clear  that  he  would  not  call  peau  de  cygne  "  Surah 
silk/'  nor  duchess  lace  "Baby  Irish."  But  the  young  ladies 
enjoyed  being  besought  by  a  society  page.  It  was  something  to 
discuss  with  one's  bridesmaids  and  friends,  to  protest  that 
"  those  interviewers  "  give  a  person  no  peace.  "  If  you  don't 
want  to  be'  in  the  papers,  they  '11  put  you  in  whether  you  like 
it  or  not,  however  often  you  refuse  them."  They  kept  Tem- 
barom  running  about,  they  raised  faint  hopes,  and  then  went 
out  when  he  called,  leaving  no  messages,  but  allowing  the  servant 
to  hint  that  if  he  went  up  to  Two  Hundred  and  Seventy-fifth 
Street  he  might  chance  to  find  them. 

"All  right,"  said  Tembarom  to  the  girl,  delighting  her  by 
lifting  his  hat  genially  as  he  turned  to  go  down  the  steps.  "  I  '11 
just  keep  going.  The  Sunday  Earth  can't  come  out  without 
those  photographs  in  it.  I  should  lose  my  job." 

When  at  last  he  ran  the  brides  to  cover  it  was  not  at  Two 
Hundred  and  Seventy-fifth  Street,  but  in  their  own  home,  to 
which  they  had  finally  returned.  They  had  heard  from  the 
servant-girl  about  what  the  young  gentleman  from  the  Sunday 
Earth  had  said,  and  they  were  mollified  by  his  proper  appre 
ciation  of  values.  Tembarom's  dressmaker  friend  also  proffered 
information. 

"  I  know  him  myself,"  she  said,  "  and  he 's  a  real  nice  gentle 
manlike  young  man.  He's  not  a  bit  like  Biker.  He  doesn't 
think  he  knows  everything.  He  came  to  me  from  Mrs.  Muns- 
berg,  just  to  ask  me  the  names  of  fashionable  materials.  He 
said  it  was  more  important  than  a  man  knew  till  he  found  out." 

Miss  Stuntz  chuckled. 

"  He  asked  me  to  lend  him  some  bits  of  samples  so  he  could 
learn  them  off  by  heart,  and  know  them  when  he  saw  them. 
He 's  got  a  pleasant  laugh ;  shows  his  teeth,  and  they  're  real 
pretty  and  white;  and  he  just  laughed  like  a  boy  and  said: 
'  These  samples  are  my  alphabet,  Miss  Stuntz.  I  'm  going  to 
learn  to  read  words  of  three  syllables  in  them.'  * 


T.    TEMBAEOM  45 

When  late  in  the  evening  Tembarom,  being  let  out  of  the 
house  after  his  interview,  turned  down  the  steps  again,  he  car 
ried  with  him  all  he  had  wanted  —  information  and  photographs, 
even  added  picturesque  details.  He  was  prepared  to  hand  in  a 
fuller  and  better  page  than  he  had  ever  handed  in  before.  He 
was  in  as  elated  a  frame  of  mind  as  a  young  man  can  be  when  he 
is  used  up  with  tramping  the  streets,  and  running  after  street 
cars,  to  stand  up  in  them  and  hang  by  a  strap.  He  had  been 
wearing  a  new  pair  of  boots,  one  of  which  rubbed  his  heel  and 
had  ended  by  raising  a  blister  worthy  of  attention.  To  reach 
the  nearest  "  L "  station  he  must  walk  across  town,  through 
several  deserted  streets  in  the  first  stages  of  being  built  up,  their 
vacant  lots  surrounded  by  high  board  fencing  covered  with  huge 
advertising  posters.  The  hall  bedroom,  with  the  gas  turned  up 
and  the  cheap,  red-cotton  comfort  on  the  bed,  made  an  alluring 
picture  as  he  faced  the  sleety  wind. 

"  If  I  cut  across  to  the  avenue  and  catch  the  '  L/  I  'm  bound 
to  get  there  sometime,  anyhow/'  he  said  as  he  braced  himself 
and  set  out  on  his  way. 

The  blister  on  his  heel  had  given  him  a  good  deal  of  trouble, 
and  he  was  obliged  to  stop  a  moment  to  ease  it,  and  he  limped 
when  he  began  to  walk  again.  But  he  limped  as  fast  as  he  could, 
while  the.  sleety  rain  beat  in  his  face,  across  one  street,  down 
another  for  a  block  or  so,  across  another,  the  melting  snow  soak 
ing  even  the  new  boots  as  he  splashed  through  it.  He  bent  his 
head,  however,  and  limped  steadily.  At  this  end  of  the  city  many 
of  the  streets  were  only  scantily  built  up,  and  he  was  passing 
through  one  at  the  corner  of  which  was  a  big  vacant  lot.  At 
the  other  corner  a  row  of  cheap  houses  which  had  only  reached 
their  second  story  waited  among  piles  of  bricks  and  frozen 
mortar  for  the  return  of  the  workmen  the  blizzard  had  dispersed. 
It  was  a  desolate-enough  thoroughfare,  and  not  a  soul  was  in 
sight.  The  vacant  lot  was  fenced  in  with  high  boarding  plastered 
over  with  flaring  sheets  advertising  whiskies,  sauces,  and  theat 
rical  ventures.  A  huge  picture  of  a  dramatically  interrupted 
wedding  ceremony  done  in  reds  and  yellows,  and  announcing  in 
large  letters  that  Mr.  Isaac  Simonson  presented  Miss  Evangeline 
St.  Clair  in  "Rent  Asunder,"  occupied  several  yards  of  the 


46  T.    TEMBAROM 

boarding.  As  he  reached  it,  the  heel  of  Tembarom's  boot  pressed, 
as  it  seemed  to  him,  a  red-hot  coal  on  the  flesh.  He  had  rubbed 
off  the  blister.  He  was  obliged  to  stop  a  moment  again. 

"  Gee  whizz !  "  he  exclaimed  through  his  teeth,  "  I  shall  have 
to  take  my  boot  off  and  try  to  fix  it." 

To  accomplish  this  he  leaned  against  the  boarding  and  Miss 
Evangeline  St.  Clair  being  "  Rent  Asunder  "  in  the  midst  of  the 
wedding  service.  He  cautiously  removed  his  boot,  and  finding 
a  hole  in  his  sock  in  the  place  where  the  blister  had  rubbed  off, 
he  managed  to  protect  the  raw  spot  by  pulling  the  sock  over  it. 
Then  he  drew  on  his  boot  again. 

"  That  '11  be  better,"  he  said,  with  a  long  breath. 

As  he  stood  on  his  feet  again  he  started  involuntarily.  This 
was  not  because  the  blister  had  hurt  him,  but  because  he  had 
heard  behind  him  a  startling  sound. 

"  What 's  that  ?  "  broke  from  him.     "  What 's  that  ?  " 

He  turned  and  listened,  feeling  his  heart  give  a  quick  thump. 
In  the  darkness  of  the  utterly  empty  street  the  thing  was  un 
natural  enough  to  make  any  man  jump.  He  had  heard  it  be 
tween  two  gusts  of  wind,  and  through  another  he  heard  it  again 
—  an  uncanny,  awful  sobbing,  broken  by  a  hopeless  wail  of 
words. 

"  I  can't  remember !     I  can't  —  remember !    0  my  God !  " 

And  it  was  not  a  woman's  voice  or  a  child's;  it  was  a  man's, 
and  there  was  an  eerie  sort  of  misery  in  it  which  made  Tembarom 
feel  rather  sick.  He  had  never  heard  a  man  sobbing  before.  He 
belonged  to  a  class  which  had  no  time  for  sobs.  This  sounded 
ghastly. 

"  Good  Lord !  "  he  said,  "  the  fellow 's  crying!    A  man!  " 

The  sound  came  directly  behind  him.  There  was  not  a  human 
being  in  sight.  Even  policemen  do  not  loiter  in  empty  streets. 

"  Hello !  "  he  cried.    "  Where  are  you  ?  " 

But  the  low,  horrible  sound  went  on,  and  no  answer  came. 
His  physical  sense  of  the  presence  of  the  blister  was  blotted  out 
by  the  abnormal  thrill  of  the  moment.  One  had  to  find  out 
about  a  thing  like  that  —  one  just  had  to.  One  could  not  go 
on  and  leave  it  behind  uninvestigated  in  the  dark  and  emptiness 


T.    TEMBAROM  47 

of  a  street  no  one  was  likely  to  pass  through.  He  listened 
more  intently.  Yes,  it  was  just  behind  him. 

"  He  's  in  the  lot  behind  the  fence,"  he  said.  "  How  did  he 
get  there  ?  " 

He  began  to  walk  along  the  boarding  to  find  a  gap.  A  few 
yards  farther  on  he  came  upon  a  broken  place  in  the  inclosure  — 
a  place  where  boards  had  sagged  until  they  fell  down,  or  had 
perhaps  been  pulled  down  by  boys  who  wanted  to  get  inside. 
He  went  through  it,  and  found  he  was  in  the  usual  vacant  lot 
long  given  up  to  rubbish.  When  he  stood  still  a  moment  he 
heard  the  sobbing  again,  and  followed  the  sound  to  the  place 
behind  the  boarding  against  which  he  had  supported  himself 
when  he  took  off  his  boot. 

A  man  was  lying  on  the  ground  with  his  arms  flung  out. 
The  street  lamp  outside  the  boarding  cast  light  enough  to  re 
veal  him.  Tembarom  felt  as  though  he  had  suddenly  found 
himself  taking  part  in  a  melodrama, — "  The  Streets  of  New 
York,"  for  choice, —  though  no  melodrama  had  ever  given  him 
this  slightly  shaky  feeling.  But  when  a  fellow  looked  up  against 
it  as  hard  as  this,  what  you  had  to  do  was  to  hold  your  nerve 
and  make  him  feel  he  was  going  to  be  helped.  The  normal 
human  thing  spoke  loud  in  him. 

"  Hello,  •  old  man ! "  he  said  with  cheerful  awkwardness. 
"What's  hit  you?" 

The  man  started  and  scrambled  to  his  feet  as  though  he  were 
frightened.  He  was  wet,  unshaven,  white  and  shuddering,  pit 
eous  to  look  at.  He  stared  with  wild  eyes,  his  chest  heaving. 

"  What 's  up  ?  "  said  Tembarom. 

The  man's  breath  caught  itself. 

"  I  don't  remember."  There  was  a  touch  of  horror  in  his 
voice,  though  he  was  evidently  making  an  effort  to  control  him 
self..  "  I  can't  —  I  can't  remember." 

"  What 's  your  name  ?  You  remember  that  ?  "  Tembarom 
put  it  to  him. 

"  K-n-no !  "  agonizingly.     "  If  I  could !     If  I  could !  " 

"  How  did  you  get  in  here  ?  " 

"  I  came  in  because  I  saw  a  policeman.     He  would  n't  under- 


48  T.    TEMBAROM 

stand.  He  would  have  stopped  me.  I  must  not  be  stopped.  I 
must  not/' 

"  Where  were  you  going  ? "  asked  Tembarom,  not  knowing 
what  else  to  say. 

"  Home !  My  God !  man,  home !  "  and  he  fell  to  shuddering 
again.  He  put  his  arm  against  the  boarding  and  dropped  his 
head  against  it.  The  low,  hideous  sobbing  tore  him  again. 

T.  Tembarom  could  not  stand  it.  In  his  newsboy  days  he  had 
never  been  able  to  stand  starved  dogs  and  homeless  cats.  Mrs. 
Bowse  was  taking  care  of  a  wretched  dog  for  him  at  the  present 
moment.  He  had  not  wanted  the  poor  brute, —  he  was  not 
particularly  fond  of  dogs, —  but  it  had  followed  him  home,  and 
after  he  had  given  it  a  bone  or  so,  it  had  licked  its  chops  and 
turned  up  its  eyes  at  him  with  such  abject  appeal  that  he  had 
not  been  able  to  turn  it  into  the  streets  again.  He  was  unsenti 
mental,  but  ruled  by  primitive  emotions.  Also  he  had  a  sudden 
recollection  of  a  night  when  as  a  little  fellow  he  had  gone  into 
a  vacant  lot  and  cried  as  like  this  as  a  child  could.  It  was  a 
bad  night  when  some  "  tough  "  big  boys  had  turned  him  out  of 
a  warm  corner  in  a  shed,  and  he  had  had  nowhere  to  go,  and 
being  a  friendly  little  fellow,  the  unfriendliness  had  hit  him 
hard.  The  boys  had  not  seen  him  crying,  but  he  remembered 
it.  He  drew  near,  and  put  his  hand  on  the  shaking  shoulder. 

"  Say,  don't  do  that,"  he  said.     "  I  '11  help  you  to  remember." 

He  scarcely  knew  why  he  said  it.  There  was  something  in 
the  situation  and  in  the  man  himself  which  was  compelling.  He 
was  not  of  the  tramp  order.  His  wet  clothes  had  been  decent, 
and  his  broken,  terrified  voice  was  neither  coarse  nor  nasal.  He 
lifted  his  head  and  caught  Tembarom's  arm,  clutching  it  with 
desperate  fingers. 

"  Could  you  ?  "  he  poured  forth  the  words.  "  Could  you  ? 
I  'm  not  quite  mad.  Something  happened.  If  I  could  be  quiet ! 
Don't  let  them  stop  me !  My  God !  my  God !  my  God !  I  can't 
say  it.  It 's  not  far  away,  but  it  won't  come  back.  You  're  a 
good  fellow ;  if  you  're  human,  help  me !  help  me !  help  me !  " 
He  clung  to  Tembarom  with  hands  which  shook;  his  eyes  were 
more  abject  than  the  starved  dog's;  he  choked,  and  awful  tears 
rolled  down  his  cheeks.  "  Only  help  me,"  he  cried  —  "  just  help, 


T.    TEMBAEOM  49 

help,  help  —  for  a  while.  Perhaps  not  long.  It  would  come 
back."  He  made  a  horrible  effort.  "  Listen !  My  name  —  I 
am  —  I  am  —  it's — " 

He  was  down  on  the  ground  again,  groveling.  His  efforts  had 
failed.  Tembarom,  overwrought  himself,  caught  at  him  and 
dragged  him  up. 

"Make  a  fight,"  he  said.  "You  can't  lie  down  like  that. 
You  've  got  to  put  up  a  fight.  It  '11  come  back.  I  tell  you  it 
will.  You  've  had  a  clip  on  the  head  or  something.  Let  me 
call  an  ambulance  and  take  you  to  the  hospital." 

The  next  moment  he  was  sorry  he  had  said  the  words,  the 
man's  terror  was  so  ill  to  behold.  He  grew  livid  with  it,  and 
uttered  a  low  animal  cry. 

"  Don't  drop  dead  over  it,"  said  Tembarom,  rather  losing  his 
head.  "  I  won't  do  it,  though  what  in  thunder  I  'm  going  to  do 
with  you  I  don't  know.  You  can't  stay  here." 

"  For  God's  sake !  "  said  the  man.  "  For  God's  sake !  "  He 
put  his  shaking  hand  on  Tembarom  again,  and  looked  at  him 
with  a  bewildered  scrutiny.  "  I  'm  not  afraid  of  you,"  he  said ; 
"  I  don't  know  why.  There 's  something  all  right  about  you.  If 
you  '11  stand  by  me  —  you  'd  stand  by  a  man,  I  'd  swear.  Take 
me  somewhere  quiet.  Let  me  get  warm  and  think." 

"  The  less  you  think  now  the  better,"  answered  Tembarom. 
"  You  want  a  bed  and  a  bath  and  a  night's  rest.  I  guess  I  've 
let  myself  in  for  it.  You  brush  off  and  brace  yourself  and  come 
with  me." 

There  was  the  hall  bedroom  and  the  red-cotton  comfort  for  one 
night  at  least,  and  Mrs.  Bowse  was  a  soft-hearted  woman.  If 
she  'd  heard  the  fellow  sobbing  behind  the  fence,  she  'd  have  been 
in  a  worse  fix  than  he  was.  Women  were  kinder-hearted  than 
men,  anyhow.  The  way  the  fellow's  voice  sounded  when  he  said, 
"  Help  me,  help  me,  help  me !  "  sounded  as  though  he  was  in  hell. 
"  Made  me  feel  as  if  I  was  bracing  up  a  chap  that  was  going  to 
be  electrocuted,"  he  thought,  feeling  sickish  again.  "  I  've  not 
got  backbone  enough  to  face  that  sort  of  thing.  Got  to  take 
him  somewhere." 

They  were  walking  toward  the  "L"  together,  and  he  was 
wondering  what  he  should  say  to  Mrs.  Bowse  when  he  saw  his 


60  T.    TEMBAROM 

companion  fumbling  under  his  coat  at  the  back  as  though  he 
was  in  search  of  something.  His  hands  being  unsteady,  it  took 
him  some  moments  to  get  at  what  he  wanted.  He  evidently 
had  a  belt  or  a  hidden  pocket.  He  got  something  out  and 
stopped  under  a  street  light  to  show  it  to  Tembarom.  His  hands 
still  shook  when  he  held  them  out,  and  his  look  was  a  curious, 
puzzled,  questioning  one.  What  he  passed  over  to  Tembarom 
was  a  roll  of  money.  Tembarom  rather  lost  his  breath  as  he 
saw  the  number  on  two  five-hundred-dollar  bills,  and  of  several 
hundreds,  besides  twenties,  tens,  and  fives. 
"  Take  it  —  keep  it,"  he  said.  "  It  will  pay." 
"  Hully  gee  !  "  cried  Tembarom,  aghast.  "  Don't  go  giving 
away  your  whole  pile  to  the  first  fellow  you  meet.  I  don't 
want  it." 

"Take  it."     The  stranger  put  his  hand  on  his  shoulder,  the 
abject  look  in  his  eyes  harrowingly  like  the  starved  dog's  again. 
"  There  's  something  all  right  about  you.     You  '11  help  me." 
"  If  I  don't  take  it  for  you,  some  one  will  knock  you  upon  the 
head  for  it."     Tembarom  hesitated,  but  the  next  instant  he 
stuffed  it  all  in  his  pocket,  incited  thereto  by  the  sound  of  a 
whizzing  roar. 

"  There  's  the  '  L '  coming,"  he  cried ;  "  run  for  all  you  're 
worth."  And  they  fled  up  the  street  and  up  the  steps,  and 
caught  it  without  a  second  to  spare. 


CHAPTER  V 


T  about  the  time  Tembarom  made  his  rush 
to  catch  the  "  L "  Joseph  Hutchinson  was 
passing  through  one  of  his  periodical  fits 
•  of  infuriated  discouragement.  Little  Ann 
knew  they  would  occur  every  two  or  three 
days,  and  she  did  not  wonder  at  them.  Also 
she  knew  that  if  she  merely  sat  still  and 
listened  as  she  sewed,  she  would  be  doing 
exactly  what  her  mother  would  have  done 
and  what  her  father  would  find  a  sort  of  irritated  comfort  in. 
There  was  no  use  in  citing  people's  villainies  and  calling  them 
names  unless  you  had  an  audience  who  would  seem  to  agree  to 
the  justice  of  your  accusations. 

So  Mr.  Hutchinson  charged  up  and  down  the  room,  his  face 
red,  and  his  hands  thrust  in  his  coat  pockets.  He  was  giving 
his  opinions  of  America  and  Americans,  and  he  spoke  with  his 
broadest  Manchester  accent,  and  threw  in  now  and  then  a  word 
or  so  of  Lancashire  dialect  to  add  roughness  and  strength,  the 
angrier  a  Manchester  man  being,  the  broader  and  therefore  the 
more  forcible  his  accent.  "  Tha  "  is  somehow  a  great  deal  more 
bitter  or  humorous  or  affectionate  than  the  mere  ordinary 
"  You  "  or  "  Yours." 

"  'Merica,"  he  bellowed  —  "  dang  'Merica !  I  says  —  an'  dang 
'Mericans.  Goin'  about  th'  world  braggin'  an'  boastin'  about 
their  sharpness  an'  their  open-'andedness.  '  Go  to  'Merica,' 
folks  '11  tell  you,  '  with  an  invention,  and  there  's  dozens  of 
millionaires  ready  to  put  money  in  it.'  Fools !  " 

"  Now,  Father," —  Little  Ann's  voice  was  as  maternal  as  her 
mother's  had  been, —  "  now,  Father,  love,  don't  work  yourself  up 
into  a  passion.  You  know  it 's  not  good  for  you." 

"  I  don't  need  to  work  myself  up  into  one.     I  'm  in  one.     A 

51 


52  T.    TEMBAROM 

man  sells  everything  he  owns  to  get  to  'Merica,  an'  when  he  gets 
there  what  does  he  find?  He  canna'  get  near  a  millionaire. 
He 's  pushed  here  an  scuffled  there,  an'  told  this  chap  can't  see 
him,  an'  that  chap  is  n't  interested,  an'  he  must  wait  his  chance 
to  catch  this  one.  An'  he  waits  an'  waits,  an'  goes  up  in  ele 
vators  an'  stands  on  one  leg  in  lobbies,  till  he's  broke'  down 
an'  sick  of  it,  an'  has  to  go  home  to  England  steerage." 

Little  Ann  looked  up  from  her  sewing.  He  had  been  walk 
ing  furiously  for  half  an  hour,  and  had  been  tired  to  begin  with. 
She  had  heard  his  voice  break  roughly  as  he  said  the  last  words. 
He  threw  himself  astride  a  chair  and,  crossing  his  arms  on  the 
back  of  it,  dropped  his  head  on  them.  Her  mother  never  allowed 
this.  Her  idea  was  that  women  were  made  to  tide  over  such 
moments  for  the  weaker  sex.  Far  had  it  been  from  the  mind 
of  Mrs.  Hutchinson  to  call  it  weaker.  "  But  there 's  times, 
Ann,  when  just  for  a  bit  they  're  just  like  children.  They  need 
comforting  without  being  let  to  know  they  are  being  comforted. 
You  know  how  it  is  when  your  back  aches,  and  some  one  just 
slips  a  pillow  under  it  in  the  right  place  without  saying  any 
thing.  That's  what  women  can  do  if  they've  got  heads.  It 
needs  a  head." 

Little  Ann  got  up  and  went  to  the  chair.  She  began  to  run 
her  fingers  caressingly  through  the  thick,  grizzled  hair. 

"  There,  Father,  love,  there  !  "  she  said.  "  We  are  going  back 
to  England,  at  any  rate,  are  n't  we  ?  And  grandmother  will  be 
so  glad  to  have  us  with  her  in  her  cottage.  And  America  's  only 
one  place." 

"  I  tried  it  first,  dang  it !  "  jerked  out  Hutchinson.  "  Every 
one  told  me  to  do  it."  He  quoted  again  with  derisive  scorn: 
"  '  You  go  to  'Merica.  'Merica 's  the  place  for  a  chap  like  you. 
'Merica  's  the  place  for  inventions.'  Liars !  " 

Little  Ann  went  on  rubbing  the  grizzled  head  lovingly. 

"  Well,  now  we  're  going  back  to  try  England.  You  never 
did  really  try  England.  And  you  know  how  beautiful  it  '11  be  in 
the  country,  with  the  primroses  in  bloom  and  the  young  lambs 
in  the  fields."  The  caressing  hand  grew  even  softer.  "  And 
you  're  not  going  to  forget  how  mother  believed  in  the  invention ; 
you  can't  do  that." 


There,  Father,  love,  there  !"  she  said 


T.   TEMBAKOM  53 

Hutchinson  lifted  his  head  and  looked  at  her. 

"Eh,  Ann/'  he  said,  "you  are  a  comfortable  little  body. 
You've  got  a  way  with  you  just  like  your  poor  mother  had. 
You  always  say  the  right  thing  to  help  a  chap  pull  himself  to 
gether.  Your  mother  did  believe  in  it,  did  n't  she  ?  " 

She  had,  indeed,  believed  in  it,  though  her  faith  was  founded 
more  upon  confidence  in  "  Mr.  Hutchinson "  than  in  any  pro 
found  knowledge  of  the  mechanical  appliance  his  inspiration 
would  supply.  She  knew  it  had  something  important  to  do  with 
locomotive  engines,  and  she  knew  that  if  railroad  magnates 
would  condescend  to  consider  it,  her  husband  was  sure  that 
fortune  would  flow  in.  She  had  lived  with  the  "invention," 
as  it  was  respectfully  called,  for  years. 

"  That  she  did,"  answered  Little  Ann.  "  And  before  she  died 
she  said  to  me :  '  Little  Ann,'  she  said,  *  there  's  one  thing  you 
must  never  let  your  father  do.  You  must  never  let  him  begin 
not  to  believe  in  his  invention.  Your  father 's  a  clever  man,  and 
it 's  a  clever  invention,  and  it  '11  make  his  fortune  yet.  You 
must  remind  him  how  I  believed  in  it  and  how  sure  I  was.' " 

Hutchinson  rubbed  his  hands  thoughtfully.  He  had  heard 
this  before,  but  it  did  him  good  to  hear  it  again. 

"  She  said  that,  did  she  ?  "  he  found  vague  comfort  in  saying. 
"She  said  that?" 

"  Yes,  she  did,  Father.     It  was  the  very  day  before  she  died." 

"Well,  she  never  said  anything  she  hadn't  thought  out,"  he 
said  in  slow  retrospection.  "  And  she  had  a  good  head  of  her 
own.  Eh,  she  was  a  wonderful  woman,  she  was,  for  sticking  to 
things.  That  was  th'  Lancashire  in  her.  Lancashire  folks 
knows  their  own  minds." 

"  Mother  knew  hers,"  said  Ann.  "  And  she  always  said  you 
knew  yours.  Come  and  sit  in  your  own  chair,  Father,  and  have 
your  paper." 

She  had  tided  him  past  the  worst  currents  without  letting 
him  slip  into  them. 

"  I  like  folks  that  knows  their  own  minds,"  he  said  as  he  sat 
down  and  took  his  paper  from  her.  "  You  know  yours,  Ann ; 
and  there  's  that  Tembarom  chap.  He  knows  his.  I  've  been 
noticing  that  chap."  There  was  a  certain  pleasure  in  using  a 


54  T.    TEMBAROM 

tone  of  amiable  patronage.  "  He 's  got  a  way  with  him  that 's 
worth  money  to  him  in  business,  if  he  only  knew  it." 

"I  don't  think  he  knows  he's  got  a  way,"  Little  Ann  said. 
"  His  way  is  just  him." 

"  He  just  gets  over  people  with  it,  like  he  got  over  me.  I 
was  ready  to  knock  his  head  off  first  time  he  spoke  to  me.  I 
was  ready  to  knock  anybody's  head  off  that  day.  I  'd  just  had 
that  letter  from  Hadman.  He  made  me  sick  wi'  the  way  he 
pottered  an'  played  the  fool  about  the  invention.  He  believed 
in  it  right  enough,  but  he  had  n't  the  courage  of  a  mouse.  He 
was  n't  goin'  to  be  the  first  one  to  risk  his  money.  Him,  with 
all  he  has !  He  's  the  very  chap  to  be  able  to  set  it  goin'.  If 
I  could  have  got  some  one  else  to  put  up  brass,  it  'd  have 
started  him.  It 's  want  o'  backbone,  that 's  the  matter  wi'  Had 
man  an'  his  lot." 

"  Some  of  these  days  some  of  them  're  going  to  get  their  eyes 
open,"  said  Little  Ann,  "  and  then  the  others  will  be  sorry.  Mr. 
Tembarom  says  they  '11  fall  over  themselves  to  get  in  on  the 
ground  floor." 

Hutchinson  chuckled. 

"That's  New  York,"  he  said.  "He's  a  rum  chap.  But 
he  thinks  a  good  bit  of  the  invention.  I  've  talked  it  over  with 
him,  because  I  've  wanted  to  talk,  and  the  one  thing  I  've  noticed 
about  Tembarom  is  that  he  can  keep  his  mouth  shut." 

"  But  he  talks  a  good  deal,"  said  Ann. 

"  That 's  the  best  of  it.  You  'd  think  he  was  telling  all  he 
knows,  and  he 's  not  by  a  fat  lot.  He  tells  you  what  you  '11  like 
to  hear,  and  he  's  not  sly ;  but  he  can  keep  a  shut  mouth.  That 's 
Lancashire.  Some  folks  can't  do  it  even  when  they  want  to." 

"  His  father  came  from  England." 

"  That 's  where  the  lad's  sense  comes  from.  Perhaps  he 's 
Lancashire.  He  had  a  lot  of  good  ideas  about  the  way  to  get 
at  Hadman." 

A  knock  at  the  door  broke  in  upon  them.  Mrs.  Bowse  pre 
sented  herself,  wearing  a  novel  expression  on  her  face.  It  was 
at  once  puzzled  and  not  altogether  disagreeably  excited. 

"  I  wish  you  would  come  down  into  the  dining-room,  Little 
Ann."  She  hesitated.  "  Mr.  Tembaron  's  brought  home  such  a 


T.    TEMBAEOM  55 

queer  man.  He  picked  him  up  ill  in  the  street.  He  wants  me 
to  let  him  stay  with  him  for  the  night,  anyhow.  I  don't  think 
he  's  crazy,  but  I  guess  he  's  lost  his  memory.  Queerest  thing  I 
ever  saw.  He  does  n't  know  his  name  or  anything." 

"  See  here,"  broke  out  Hutchinson,  dropping  his  hands  and 
his  paper  on  his  knee,  "  I  'm  not  going  to  have  Ann  goin'  down 
stairs  to  quiet  lunatics." 

"  He  's  as  quiet  as  a  child,"  Mrs.  Bowse  protested.  "  There  's 
something  pitiful  about  him,  he  seems  so  frightened.  He 's 
drenched  to  the  skin." 

"  Call  an  ambulance  and  send  him  to  the  hospital,"  advised 
Hutchinson. 

"  That 's  what  Mr.  Tembarom  says  he  can't  do.  It  frightens 
him  to  death  to  speak  of  it.  He  just  clings  to  Mr.  Tembarom 
sort  of  awful,  as  if  he  thinks  he  '11  save  his  life.  But  that  is  n't 
all,"  she  added  in  an  amazed  tone ;  "  he  's  given  Mr.  Tembarom 
more  than  two  thousand  dollars." 

"  What ! "  shouted  Hutchinson,  bounding  to  his  feet  quite 
unconsciously. 

"  What !  "  exclaimed  Little  Ann. 

"  Just  you  come  and  look  at  it,"  answered  Mrs.  Bowse,  nodding 
her  head.  "  There  's  over  two  thousand  dollars  in  bills  spread 
out  on  the  "table  in  the  dining-room  this  minute.  He  had  it  in 
a  belt  pocket,  and  he  dragged  it  out  in  the  street  and  would 
make  Mr.  Tembarom  take  it.  Do  come  and  tell  us  what  to 
do." 

"  I  'd  get  him  to  take  off  his  wet  clothes  and  get  into  bed,  and 
drink  some  hot  spirits  and  water  first,"  said  Little  Ann. 
"  Would  n't  you,  Mrs.  Bowse  ?  " 

Hutchinson  got  up",  newspaper  in  hand. 

"  I  say,  I  'd  like  to  go  down  and  have  a  look  at  that  chap 
myself,"  he  announced. 

"  If  he  's  so  frightened,  perhaps  — "  Little  Ann  hesitated.     . 

"  That 's  it,"  put  in  Mrs.  Bowse.  "  He  's  so  nervous  it  'd  make 
him  worse  to  see  another  man.  You  'd  better  wait,  Mr.  Hutch 
inson." 

Hutchinson  sat  down  rather  grumpily,  and  Mrs.  Bowse  and 
Little  Ann  went  down  the  stairs  together. 


56  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  I  feel  real  nervous  myself/'  said  Mrs.  Bowse,  "  it 's  so 
queer.  But  he 's  not  crazy.  He 's  quiet  enough." 

As  they  neared  the  bottom  of  the  staircase  Little  Ann  could 
see  over  the  balustrade  into  the  dining-room.  The  strange  man 
was  sitting  by  the  table,  his  disordered,  black-haired  head  on  his 
arm.  He  looked  like  an  exhausted  thing.  Tembarom  was  sit 
ting  by  him,  and  was  talking  in  an  encouraging  voice.  He  had 
laid  a  hand  on  one  of  the  stranger's.  On  the  table  beside  them 
was  spread  a  number  of  bills  which  had  evidently  just  been 
counted. 

"  Here 's  the  ladies,"  said  Tembarom. 

The  stranger  lifted  his  head  and,  having  looked,  rose  and 
stood  upright,  waiting.  It  was  the  involuntary,  mechanical 
action  of  a  man  who  had  been  trained  among  gentlemen. 

"  It 's  Mrs.  Bowse  again,  and  she  's  brought  Miss  Hutchinson 
down  with  her.  Miss  Hutchinson  always  knows  what  to  do," 
explained  Tembarom  in  his  friendly  voice. 

The  man  bowed,  and  his  bewildered  eyes  fixed  themselves  on 
Little  Ann. 

"  Thank  you,"  he  said.  "  It 's  very  kind  of  you.  I  —  I  am  — 
in  great  trouble." 

Little  Ann  went  to  him  and  smiled  her  motherly  smile  at 
him. 

"You're  very  wet,"  she  said.  "You'll  take  a  bad  cold  if 
you  're  not  careful.  Mrs.  Bowse  thinks  you  ought  to  go  right  to 
bed  and  have  something  hot  to  drink." 

"  It  seems  a  long  time  since  I  was  in  bed,"  he  answered  her. 

"  I  'm  very  tired.  Thank  you."  He  drew  a  weary,  sighing 
breath,  but  he  did  n't  move  his  eyes  from  the  girl's  face.  Per 
haps  the  cessation  of  action  in  certain  cells  of  his  brain  had  in 
creased  action  in  others.  He  looked  as  though  he  were  seeing 
something  in  Little  Ann's  face  which  might  not  have  revealed 
itself  so  clearly  to  the  more  normal  gaze. 

He  moved  slightly  nearer  to  her.  He  was  a  tall  man,  and 
had  to  look  down  at  her. 

"  What  is  your  name  ?  "  he  asked  anxiously.  "  Names  trouble 
me." 

It  was  Ann  who  drew  a  little  nearer  to  him  now.     She  had  to 


T.    TEMBAROM  57 

look  up,  and  the  soft,  absorbed  kindness  in  her  eyes  might, 
Tembarom  thought,  have  soothed  a  raging  lion,  it  was  so  intent 
on  its  purpose. 

"  My  name  is  Ann  Hutchinson ;  but  never  you  mind  about  it 
now,"  she  said.  "  I  '11  tell  it  to  you  again.  Let  Mr.  Tembarom 
take  you  up-stairs  to  bed.  You  '11  be  better  in  the  morning." 
And  because  his  hollow  eyes  rested  on  her  so  fixedly  she  put 
her  hand  on  his  wet  sleeve. 

"  You  're  wet  through,"  she  said.     "  That  won't  do." 

He  looked  down  at  her  hand  and  then  at  her  face  again. 

"  Help  me,"  he  pleaded,  "  just  help  me.  I  don't  know  what 's 
happened.  Have  I  gone  mad  ?  " 

"No,"  she  answered;  "not  a  bit.  It'll  all  come  right  after 
a  while ;  you  '11  see." 

""Will  it,  will  it?"  he  begged,  and  then  suddenly  his  eyes 
were  full  of  tears.  It  was  a  strange  thing  to  see  him  in  his  be 
wildered  misery  try  to  pull  himself  together,  and  bite  his  shaking 
lips  as  though  he  vaguely  remembered  that  he  was  a  man.  "  I 
beg  pardon,"  he  faltered :  "  I  suppose  I  'm  ill." 

"  I  don't  know  where  to  put  him,"  Mrs.  Bowse  was  saying 
half  aside ;  "  I  've  not  got  a  room  empty." 

"  Put  him  in  my  bed  and  give  me  a  shake-down  on  the  floor," 
said  Tembarom.  "  That  '11  be  all  right.  He  does  n't  want  me 
to  leave  him,  anyhow." 

He  turned  to  the  money  on  the  table. 

"  Say,"  he  said  to  his  guest,  "  there 's  two  thousand  five 
hundred  dollars  here.  We  've  counted  it  to  make  sure.  That 's 
quite  some  money.  And  it 's  yours  —  " 

The  stranger  looked  disturbed  and  made  a  nervous  gesture. 

"  Don't,  don't !  "  he  broke  in.  "  Keep  it.  Some  one  took  the 
rest.  This  was  hidden.  It  will  pay." 

"  You  see  he  is  n't  real'  out  of  his  mind,"  Mrs.  Bowse  mur 
mured  feelingly. 

"  No,  not  real'  out  of  it,"  said  Tembarom.  "  Say," —  as  an 
inspiration  occurred  to  him, — "  I  guess  maybe  Miss  Hutchinson 
will  keep  it.  "Will  you,  Little  Ann?  You  can  give  it  to  him 
when  he  wants  it." 

"  It 's  a  good  bit  of  money,"  said  Little  Ann,  soberly ;  "  but 


58  T.    TEMBAEOM 

I  can  put  it  in  a  bank  and  pay  Mrs.  Bowse  his  board  every  week. 
Yes,  I  '11  take  it.  Now  he  must  go  to  bed.  It 's  a  comfortable 
little  room,"  she  said  to  the  stranger,  "  and  Mrs.  Bowse  will 
make  you  a  hot  milk-punch.  That  '11  be  nourishing." 

"  Thank  you,"  murmured  the  man,  still  keeping  his  yearning 
eyes  on  her.  "  Thank  you." 

So  he  was  taken  up  to  the  fourth  floor  and  put  into  Tembar- 
om's  bed.  The  hot  milk-punch. seemed  to  take  the  chill  out  of 
him,  and  when,  by  lying  on  his  pillow  and  gazing  at  the  shake 
down  on  the  floor  as  long  as  he  could  keep  his  eyes  open,  he 
had  convinced  himself  that  Tembarom  was  going  to  stay  with 
him,  he  fell  asleep. 

Little  Ann  went  back  to  her  father  carrying  a  roll  of  bills  in 
her  hands.  It  was  a  roll  of  such  size  that  Hutchinson  started 
up  in  his  chair  and  stared  at  the  sight  of  it. 

"  Is  that  the  money  ?  "  he  exclaimed.  "  What  are  you  going  to 
do  with  it  ?  What  have  you  found  out,  lass  ?  " 

"Yes,  this  is  it,"  she  answered.  "Mr.  Tembarom  asked  me 
to  take  care  of  it.  I  'm  going  to  put  it  in  the  bank.  But  we 
have  n't  found  out  anything." 


CHAPTER  VI 


HIS  was  the  opening  incident  of  the  series 
of  extraordinary  and  altogether  incongruous 
events  which  took  place  afterwards,  as  it  ap 
peared  to  T.  Tembarom,  like  scenes  in  a  play 
in  which  he  had  become  involved  in  a  manner 
which  one  might  be  inclined  to  regard  humor 
ously  and  make  jokes  about,  because  it  was  a 
thousand  miles  away  from  anything  like  real 
life.  That  was  the  way  it  struck  him.  The 
events  referred  to,  it  was  true,  were  things  one  now  and  then 
read  about  in  newspapers,  but  while  the  world  realized  that 
they  were  actual  occurrences,  one  rather  regarded  them,  when 
their  parallels  were  reproduced  in  books  and  plays,  as  belonging 
alone  to  the  world  of  pure  and  highly  romantic  fiction. 

"  I  guess  the  reason  why  it  seems  that  way,"  he  summed  it  up 
to  Hutchinson  and  Little  Ann,  after  the  worst  had  come  to  the 
worst,  "  is  because  we  've  not  only  never  known  any  one  it  'a 
happened  to,  but  we  Ve  never  known  any  one  that 's  known  any 
one  it 's  happened  to.  I  've  got  to  own  up  that  it  makes  me 
feel  as  if  the  fellows  'd  just  yell  right  out  laughing  when  they 
heard  it." 

The  stranger's  money  had  been  safely  deposited  in  a  bank, 
and  the  stranger  himself  still  occupied  Tembarom's  bedroom. 
He  slept  a  great  deal  and  was  very  quiet.  With  great  difficulty 
Little  Ann  had  persuaded  him  to  let  a  doctor  see  him,  and  the 
doctor  had  been  much  interested  in  his  case.  He  had  expected 
to  find  some  signs  of  his  having  received  accidentally  or  other 
wise  a  blow  upon  the  head,  but  on  examination  he  found  no  scar 
or  wound.  The  condition  he  was  in  was  frequently  the  result 
of  concussion  of  the  brain,  sometimes  of  prolonged  nervous  strain 
or  harrowing  mental  shock.  Such  cases  occurred  not  infre 
quently.  Quiet  and  entire  freedom  from  excitement  would  do 

59 


60  T.   TEMBAROM 

more  for  such  a  condition  than  anything  else.  If  he  was  afraid 
of  strangers,  by  all  means  keep  them  from  him.  Tembarom 
had  been  quite  right  in  letting  him  think  he  would  help  him  to 
remember,  and  that  somehow  he  would  in  the  end  reach  the 
place  he  had  evidently  set  out  to  go  to.  Nothing  must  be  allowed 
to  excite  him.  It  was  well  he  had  had  money  on  his  person 
and  that  he  had  fallen  into  friendly  hands.  A  city  hospital 
would  not  have  been  likely  to  help  him  greatly.  The  restraint 
of  its  necessary  discipline  might  have  alarmed  him. 

So  long  as  he  was  persuaded  that  Tembarom  was  not  going  to 
desert  him,  he  was  comparatively  calm,  though  sunk  in  a  piteous 
and  tormented  melancholy.  His  worst  hours  were  when  he  sat 
alone  in  the  hall  bedroom,  with  his  face  buried  in  his  handti.  He 
would  so  sit  without  moving  or  speaking,  and  Little  Ann  dis 
covered  that  at  these  times  he  was  trying  to  remember.  Some 
times  he  would  suddenly  rise  and  walk  about  the  little  room, 
muttering,  with  woe  in  his  eyes.  Ann,  who  saw  how  hard  this 
was  for  him,  found  also  that  to  attempt  to  check  or  distract 
him  was  even  worse.  When,  sitting  in  her  father's  room,  which 
was  on  the  other  side  of  the  wall,  she  heard  his  fretted,  hurried 
pacing  feet,  her  face  lost  its  dimpled  cheerfulness.  She  won 
dered  if  her  mother  would  not  have  discovered  some  way  of  clear 
ing  the  black  cloud  distracting  his  brain.  Nothing  would  induce 
him  to  go  down  to  the  boarders'  dining-room  for  his  meals,  and 
the  sight  of  a  servant  alarmed  him  so  that  it  was  Ann  who  took 
him  the  scant  food  he  would  eat.  As  the  time  of  her  return  to 
England  with  her  father  drew  near,  she  wondered  what  Mr. 
Tembarom  would  do  without  her  services.  It  was  she  who 
suggested  that  they  must  have  a  name  for  him,  and  the  name 
of  a  part  of  Manchester  had  provided  one.  There  was  a  place 
called  Strangeways,  and  one  night  when,  in  talking  to  her 
father,  she  referred  to  it  in  Tembarom's  presence,  he  suddenly 
seized  upon  it. 

"  Strangeways,"  he  said.  "  That  'd  make  a  good-enough 
name  for  him.  Let's  call  him  Mr.  Strangeways.  I  don't  like 
the  way  the  fellows  have  of  calling  him  '  the  Freak.' y' 

So  the  name  had  been  adopted,  and  soon  became  an  established 
fact. 


T.    TEMBAKOM  61 

"The  way  I  feel  about  him,"  Tembarom  said,  "is  that  the 
fellow 's  not  a  bit  of  a  joke.  What  I  see  is  that  he  's  up  against 
about  the  toughest  proposition  I  've  ever  known.  Gee !  that 
fellow 's  not  crazy  He  's  worse.  If  he  was  out-and-out  dippy 
and  did  n't  know  it,  he  'd  be  all  right.  Likely  as  not  he  'd  be 
thinking  he  was  the  Pope  of  Rome  or  Anna  Held.  What  knocks 
him  out  is  that  he  's  just  right  enough  to  know  he  's  wrong,  and 
to  be  trying  to  get  back.  He  reminds  me  of  one  of  those  chaps 
the  papers  tell  about  sometimes  —  fellows  that  go  to  work  in 
livery-stables  for  ten  years  and  call  themselves  Bill  Jones,  and 
then  wake  up  some  morning  and  remember  they  're  some  high- 
browed  minister  of  the  gospel  named  the  Rev.  James  Cad- 
wallader." 

When  the  curtain  drew  up  on  Tembarom's  amazing  drama, 
Strangeways  had  been  occupying  his  bed  nearly  three  weeks, 
and  he  himself  had  been  sleeping  on  a  cot  Mrs.  Bowse  had  put 
up  for  him  in  his  room.  The  Hutchinsons  were  on  the  point  of 
sailing  for  England  —  steerage  —  on  the  steamship  Transatlan 
tic,  and  Tembarom  was  secretly  torn  into  fragments,  though  he 
had  done  well  with  the  page  and  he  was  daring  to  believe  that 
at  the  end  of  the  month  Galton  would  tell  him  he  had  "made 
good  "  and  the  work  would  continue  indefinitely. 

If  that  happened,  he  would  be  raised  to  "twenty-five  per" 
and  would  be  a  man  of  means.  If  the  Hutchinsons  had  not  been 
going  away,  he  would  have  been  floating  in  clouds  of  rose  color. 
If  he  could  persuade  Little  Ann  to  take  him  in  hand  when  she  'd 
had  time  to  "  try  him  out,"  even  Hutchinson  could  not  utterly 
flout  a  fellow  who  was  making  his  steady  twenty-five  per  on  a 
big  paper,  and  was  on  such  terms  with  his  boss  that  he  might 
get  other  chances.  Gee!  but  he  was  a  fellow  that  luck  just 
seemed  to  chase,  anyhow !  Look  at  the  other  chaps,  lots  of  'em, 
who  knew  twice  as  much  as  he  did,  and  had  lived  in  decent 
homes  and  gone  to  school  and  done  their  darned  best,  too,  and 
then  had  n't  been  able  to  get  there !  It  did  n't  seem  fair  somehow 
that  he  should  run  into  such  pure  luck. 

The  day  arrived  when  Galton  was  to  give  his  decision.  Tem 
barom  was  going  to  hand  in  his  page,  and  while  he  was  naturally 
a  trifle  nervous,  his  nervousness  would  have  been  a  hopeful  and 


62  T.    TEMBAROM 

not  unpleasant  thing  but  that  the  Transatlantic  sailed  in  two 
days,  and  in  the  Hutchinson's  rooms  Little  Ann  was  packing 
her  small  trunk  and  her  father's  bigger  one,  which  held  more 
models  and  drawings  than  clothing.  Hutchinson  was  redder  in 
the  face  than  usual,  and  indignant  condemnation  of  America 
and  American  millionaires  possessed  his  soul.  Everybody  was 
rather  depressed.  One  boarder  after  another  had  wakened  to  a 
realization  that,  with  the  passing  of  Little  Ann,  Mrs.  Bowse's 
establishment,  even  with  the  parlor,  the  cozy-corner,  and  the 
second-hand  pianola  to  support  it,  would  be  a  deserted-seeming 
thing.  Mrs.  Bowse  felt  the  tone  of  low  spirits  about  the  table, 
and  even  had  a  horrible  secret  fear  that  certain  of  her  best 
boarders  might  decide  to  go  elsewhere,  merely  to  change  sur 
roundings  from  which  they  missed  something.  Her  eyes  were 
a  little  red,  and  she  made  great  efforts  to  keep  things  going. 

"  I  can  only  keep  the  place  up  when  I  've  no  empty  rooms," 
she  had  said  to  Mrs.  Peck,  "  but  I  'd  have  boarded  her  free  if 
her  father  would  have  let  her  stay.  But  he  would  n't,  and,  any 
way,  she  M  no  more  let  him  go  off  alone  than  she  'd  jump  off 
Brooklyn  Bridge." 

It  had  been  arranged  that  partly  as  a  farewell  banquet  and 
partly  to  celebrate  Galton's  decision  about  the  page,  there  was 
to  be  an  oyster  stew  that  night  in  Mr.  Hutchinson's  room, 
which  was  distinguished  as  a  bed-sitting-room.  Tembarom  had 
diplomatically  suggested  it  to  Mr.  Hutchinson.  It  was  to  be 
Tembarom's  oyster  supper,  and  somehow  he  managed  to  convey 
that  it  was  only  a  proper  and  modest  tribute  to  Mr.  Hutchinson 
himself.  First-class  oyster  stew  and  pale  ale  were  not  so  bad 
when  properly  suggested,  therefore  Mr.  Hutchinson  consented. 
Jim  Bowles  and  Julius  Steinberger  were  to  come  in  to  share 
the  feast,  and  Mrs.  Bowse  had  promised  to  prepare. 

It  was  not  an  inspiring  day  for  Little  Ann.  New  York  had 
seemed  a  bewildering  and  far  too  noisy  place  for  her  when  she 
had  come  to  it  directly  from  her  grandmother's  cottage  in  the 
English  village,  where  she  had  spent  her  last  three  months  be 
fore  leaving  England.  The  dark  rooms  of  the  five-storied  board 
ing-house  had  seemed  gloomy  enough  to  her,  and  she  had  found  it 
mugh  more  difficult  to  adjust  herself  to  her  surroundings  than 


T.    TEMBAEOM  63 

she  could  have  been  induced  to  admit  to  her  father.  At  first  his 
temper  and  the  open  contempt  for  American  habits  and  institu 
tions  which  he  called  "  speaking  his  mind  "  had  given  her  a  great 
deal  of  careful  steering  through  shoals  to  do.  At  the  outset  the 
boarders  had  resented  him,  and  sometimes  had  snapped  back 
their  own  views  of  England  and  courts.  Violent  and  disparag 
ing  argument  had  occasionally  been  imminent,  and  Mrs.  Bowse 
had  worn  an  ominous  look.  Their  rooms  had  in  fact  been 
"  wanted  "  before  their  first  week  had  come  to  an  end,  and  Little 
Ann  herself  scarcely  knew  how  she  had  tided  over  that  situation. 
But  tide  it  over  she  did,  and  by  supernatural  effort  and  watch 
fulness  she  contrived  to  soothe  Mrs.  Bowse  until  she  had  been 
in  the  house  long  enough  to  make  friends  with  people  and  aid 
her  father  to  realize  that,  if  they  went  elsewhere,  they  might 
find  only  the  same  class  of  boarders,  and  there  would  be  the  cost 
of  moving  to  consider.  She  had  beguiled  an  arm-chair  from 
Mrs.  Bowse,  and  had  re-covered  it  herself  with  a  remnant  of 
crimson  stuff  secured  from  a  miscellaneous  heap  at  a  marked- 
down  sale  at  a  department  store.  She  had  arranged  his  books 
and  papers  adroitly  and  had  kept  them  in  their  places  so  that 
he  never  felt  himself  obliged  to  search  for  any  one  of  them. 
With  many  little  contrivances  she  had  given  his  bed-sitting-room 
a  look  of  -comfort  and  established  homeliness,  and  he  had  even 
begun  to  like  it. 

"Tha't  just  like  tha  mother,  Ann,"  he  had  said.  "She'd 
make  a  railway  station  look  as  if  it  had  been  lived  in." 

Then  Tembarom  had  appeared,  heralded  by  Mrs.  Bowse  and 
the  G.  Destroyer,  and  the  first  time  their  eyes  had  met  across  the 
table  she  had  liked  him.  The  liking  had  increased.  There  was 
that  in  his  boyish  cheer  and  his  not-too-well-fed-looking  face 
which  called  forth  maternal  interest.  As  she  gradually  learned 
what  his  life  had  been,  she  felt  a  thrilled  anxiety  to  hear  day 
by  day  how  he  was  getting  on.  She  listened  for  details,  and  felt 
it  necessary  to  gather  herself  together  in  the  face  of  a  slight 
depression  when  hopes  of  Galton  were  less  high  than  usual.  His 
mending  was  mysteriously  done,  and  in  time  he  knew  with 
amazed  gratitude  that  he  was  being  "looked  after."  His  first 
thanks  were  so  awkward,  but  so  full  of  appreciation  of  unaccus- 


64  T.   TEMBAROM 

tomed  luxury,  that  they  almost  brought  tears  to  her  eyes,  since 
they  so  clearly  illuminated  the  entire  novelty  of  any  attention 
whatever. 

"  I  just  don't  know  what  to  say,"  he  said,  shuffling  from  one 
foot  to  another,  though  his  nice  grin  was  at  its  best.  "  I  've 
never  had  a  woman  do  anything  for  me  since  I  was  ten.  I  guess 
women  do  lots  of  things  for  most  fellows;  but,  then,  they're 
mothers  and  sisters  and  aunts.  I  appreciate  it  like  —  like  thun 
der.  I  feel  as  if  I  was  Rockefeller,  Miss  Ann." 

In  a  short  time  she  had  become  "Little  Ann"  to  him,  as  to 
the  rest,  and  they  began  to  know  each  other  very  well.  Jim 
Bowles  and  Julius  Steinberger  had  not  been  able  to  restrain 
themselves  at  first  from  making  slangy,  yearning  love  to  her,  but 
Tembarom  had  been  different.  He  had  kept  himself  well  in 
hand.  Yes,  she  had  liked  T.  Tembarom,  and  as  she  packed  the 
trunks  she  realized  that  the  Atlantic  Ocean  was  three  thousand 
miles  across,  and  when  two  people  who  had  no  money  were 
separated  by  it,  they  were  likely  to  remain  so.  Rich  people 
could  travel,  poor  people  couldn't.  You.  just  stayed  where 
things  took  you,  and  you  must  n't  be  silly  enough  to  expect  things 
to  happen  in  your  class  of  life  —  things  like  seeing  people  again. 
Your  life  just  went  on.  She  kept  herself  very  busy,  and  did  not 
allow  her  thoughts  any  latitude.  It  would  vex  her  father  very 
much  if  he  thought  she  had  really  grown  fond  of  America  and 
was  rather  sorry  to  go  away.  She  had  finished  her  packing  be 
fore  evening,  and  the  trunks  were  labeled  and  set  aside,  some 
in  the  outside  hall  and  some  in  the  corner  of  the  room.  She 
had  sat  down  with  some  mending  on  her  lap,  and  Hutchinson 
was  walking  about  the  room  with  the  restlessness  of  the  traveler 
whose  approaching  journey  will  not  let  him  settle  himself  any 
where. 

"  I  '11  lay  a  shilling  you  've  got  everything  packed  and  ready, 
and  put  just  where  a  chap  can  lay  his  hands  on  it,"  he  said. 

"  Yes,  Father.  Your  tweed  cap  's  in  the  big  pocket  of  your 
thick  top-coat,  and  there 's  an  extra  pair  of  spectacles  and  your 
pipe  and  tobacco  in  the  small  one." 

"  And  off  we  go  back  to  England  same  as  we  came ! "  He 
rubbed  his  head,  and  drew  a  big,  worried  sigh.  "  Where  's  them 


T.    TEMBAROM  65 

going  ?  "  he  asked,  pointing  to  some  newly  laundered  clothing 
on  a  side  table.  "  You  have  n't  forgotten  'em,  have  you  ?  " 

"  No,  Father.  It 's  just  some  of  the  young  men's  washing. 
I  thought  I  'd  take  time  to  mend  them  up  a  bit  before  I  went 
to  bed/' 

"That's  like  tha  mother,  too  —  taking  care  of  everybody. 
What  did  these  chaps  do  before  you  came  ?  " 

"  Sometimes  they  tried  to  sew  on  a  button  or  so  themselves, 
but  oftener  they  went  without.  Men  make  poor  work  of  sewing. 
It  ought  n't  to  be  expected  of  them." 

Hutchinson  stopped  and  looked  her  and  her  mending  over 
with  a  touch  of  curiosity. 

"  Some  of  them 's  Tembarom's  ?  "  he  asked. 

Little  Ann  held  up  a  pair  of  socks. 

"  These  are.  He  does  wear  them  out,  poor  fellow.  It 's  tramp 
ing  up  and  down  the  streets  to  save  car-fare  does  it.  He 's 
never  got  a  heel  to  his  name.  But  he  's  going  to  be  able  to  buy 
some  new  ones  next  week." 

Hutchinson  began  his  tramp  again. 

"  He  '11  miss  thee,  Little  Ann ;  but  so  '11  the  other  lads,  for 
that  matter." 

"  He  '11  know  to-night  whether  Mr.  Galton  's  going  to  let  him 
keep  his  work.  I  do  hope  he  will.  I  believe  he  'd  begin  to  get 
on." 

"  Well," —  Hutchinson  was  just  a  little  grudging  even  at  this 
comparatively  lenient  moment, — "I  believe  the  chap '11  get  on 
myself.  He  's  got  pluck  and  he  's  sharp.  I  never  saw  him  make 
a  poor  mouth  yet." 

"  Neither  did  I,"  answered  Ann. 

A  door  leading  into  Tembarom's  hall  bedroom  opened  on  to 
Hutchinson's.  They  both  heard  some  one  inside  the  room 
knock  at  it.  Hutchinson  turned  and  listened,  jerking  his  head 
toward  the  sound. 

"  There 's  that  poor  chap  again,"  he  said.  "  He 's  wakened 
and  got  restless.  What 's  Tembarom  going  to  do  with  him,  I  'd 
like  to  know?  The  money  won't  last  forever." 

"  Shall  I  let  him  in,  Father  ?  I  dare  say  he  's  got  restless 
because  Mr.  Tembarom  's  not  come  in." 


66  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  Aye,  we  '11  let  him  in.  He  won't  have  thee  long.  He  can't 
do  no  harm  so  long  as  I  'm  here." 

Little  Ann  went  to  the  door  and  opened  it.  She  spoke 
quietly. 

"  Do  you  want  to  come  in  here,  Mr.  Strangeways  ?  " 

The  man  came  in.  He  was  clean,  but  still  unshaven,  and  his 
clothes  looked  as  though  he  had  been  lying  down.  He  looked 
round  the  room  anxiously. 

"  Where  has  he  gone  ?  "  he  demanded  in  an  overstrung  voice. 
"  Where  is  he  ?  "  He  caught  at  Ann's  sleeve  in  a  sudden  access 
of  nervous  fear.  "  What  shall  I  do  if  he  's  gone  ?  " 

Hutchinson  moved  toward  him. 

"  'Ere,  'ere,"  he  said,  "  don't  you  go  catchin'  hold  of  ladies. 
What  do  you  want  ?  " 

"  I  've  forgotten  his  name  now.  What  shall  I  do  if  I  can't 
remember  ?  "  faltered  Strangeways. 

Little  Ann  patted  his  arm  comfortingly. 

"  There,  there,  now !  You  've  not  really  forgotten  it.  It 's 
just  slipped  your  memory.  You  want  Mr.  Tembarom  —  Mr. 
T.  Tembarom." 

"  Oh,  thank  you,  thank  you.  That 's  it.  Yes,  Tembarom. 
He  said  T.  Tembarom.  He  said  he  would  n't  throw  me  over." 

Little  Ann  led  him  to  a  seat  and  made  him  sit  down.  She 
answered  him  with  quiet  decision. 

"  Well,  if  he  said  he  would  n't,  he  won't.     Will  he,  Father  ?  " 

"  No,  he  won't."  There  was  rough  good  nature  in  Hutchin- 
son's  admission.  He  paused  after  it  to  glance  at  Ann.  "You 
think  a  lot  of  that  lad,  don't  you,  Ann  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  do,  Father,"  she  replied  undisturbedly.  "He's  one 
you  can  trust,  too.  He  's  up-town  at  his  work,"  she  explained  to 
Strangeways.  "  He  '11  be  back  before  long.  He  's  giving  us  a 
bit  of  a  supper  in  here  because  we  're  going  away." 

Strangeways  grew  nervous  again. 

"  But  he  won't  go  with  you  ?     T.  Tembarom  won't  go  ?  " 

"  No,  no ;  he  's  not  going.  He  '11  stay  here,"  she  said  sooth 
ingly.  He  had  evidently  not  observed  the  packed  and  labeled 
trunks  when  he  came  in.  He  seemed  suddenly  to  see  them  now, 
and  rose  in  distress. 


T.   TEMBAROM  67 

"  Whose  are  these  ?    You  said  he  was  n't  going  ?  " 

Ann  took  hold  of  his  arm  and  led  him  to  the  corner. 

"They  are  not  Mr.  Tembarom's  trunks,"  she  explained.. 
"  They  are  father's  and  mine.  Look  on  the  labels.  Joseph 
Hutchinson,  Liverpool.  Ann  Hutchinson,  Liverpool." 

He  looked  at  them  closely  in  a  puzzled  way.  He  read  a  label 
aloud  in  a  dragging  voice. 

"  Ann  Hutchinson,  Liverpool.   What 's  —  what 's  Liverpool  ?  " 

"  Oh,  come,"  encouraged  Little  Ann,  "  you  know  that.  It 's 
a  place  in  England.  We  're  going  back  to  England." 

He  stood  and  gazed  fixedly  before  him.  Then  he  began  to  rub 
his  fingers  across  his  forehead.  Ann  knew  the  straining  look 
in  his  eyes.  He  was  making  that  horrible  struggle  to  get  back 
somewhere  through  the  darkness  which  shut  him  in.  It  was 
so  painful  a  thing  to  see  that  even  Hutchinson  turned  slightly 
away. 

"  Don't ! "  said  Little  Ann,  softly,  and  tried  to  draw  him 
away. 

He  caught  his  breath  convulsively  once  or  twice,  and  his  voice 
dragged  out  words  again,  as  though  he  were  dragging  them  from 
bottomless  depths. 

"  Going  —  back  —  to  —  England  —  back  to  England  —  to 
England."" 

He  dropped  into  a  chair  near  by,  his  arms  thrown  over  its 
back,  and  broke,  as  his  face  fell  upon  them,  into  heavy,  deadly 
sobbing  —  the  kind  of  sobbing  Tembarom  had  found  it  impos 
sible  to  stand  up  against.  Hutchinson  whirled  about  testily. 

"  Dang  it ! "  he  broke  out,  "  I  wish  Tembarom  'd  turn  up. 
What  are  we  to  do?"  He  didn't  like  it  himself.  It  struck 
him  as  unseemly. 

But  Ann  went  to  the  chair,  and  put  her  hands  on  the  shudder 
ing  shoulder,  bending  over  the  soul-wrung  creature,  the  wisdom 
of  centuries  in  the  soft,  expostulatory  voice  which  seemed  to 
reach  the  very  darkness  he  was  lost  in.  It  was  a  wisdom  of 
which  she  was  wholly  unaware,  but  it  had  been  born  with  her, 
and  was  the  building  of  her  being. 

"'Sh!  'S-h-h!"  she  said.  "You  mustn't  do  that.  Mr. 
Tembarom  would  n't  like  you  to  do  it.  He  '11  be  in  directly. 


68  T.   TEMBAKOM 

'Sh !  'Sh,  now !  "  And  simple  as  the  words  were,  their  sooth 
ing  reached  him.  The  wildness  of  his  sobs  grew  less. 

"  See  here,"  Hutchinson  protested,  "  this  won't  do,  my  man. 
I  won't  have  it,  Ann.  I  'm  upset  myself,  what  with  this  going 
hack  and  everything.  I  can't  have  a  chap  coming  and  crying 
like  that  there.  It  upsets  me  worse  than  ever.  And  you  hangin* 
over  him !  It  won't  do." 

Strangeways  lifted  his  head  from  his  arms  and  looked  at 
him. 

"Aye,  I  mean  what  I  say,"  Hutchinson  added  fretfully. 

Strangeways  got  up  from  the  chair.  When  he  was  not  bowed 
or  slouching  it  was  to  be  seen  that  he  was  a  tall  man  with  square 
shoulders.  Despite  his  unshaven,  haggard  face,  he  had  a  sort  of 
presence. 

"  I  '11  go  back  to  my  room,"  he  said.  "  I  forgot.  I  ought 
not  to  be  here." 

Neither  Hutchinson  nor  Little  Ann  had  ever  seen  any  one  do 
the  thing  he  did  next.  When  Ann  went  with  him  to  the  door  of 
the  hall  bedroom,  he  took  her  hand,  and  bowing  low  before  her, 
lifted  it  gently  to  his  lips. 

Hutchinson  stared  at  him  as  he  turned  into  the  room  and 
closed  the  door  behind  him. 

"  Well,  I  've  read  of  lords  and  ladies  doin'  that  in  books,"  he 
said,  "  but  I  never  thought  I  should  see  a  chap  do  it  myself." 

Little  Ann  went  back  to  her  mending,  looking  very  thought 
ful. 

"  Father,"  she  said,  after  a  few  moments,  "  England  made  him 
come  near  to  remembering  something." 

"  New  York  '11  come  near  making  me  remember  a  lot  of  things 
when  I  'm  out  of  it,"  said  Mr.  Hutchinson,  sitting  down  heavily 
in  his  chair  and  rubbing  his  head.  "  Eh,  dang  it !  dang  it !  " 

"  Don't  you  let  it,  Father,"  advised  Little  Ann.  "  There  's 
never  any  good  in  thinking  things  over." 

"You're  not  as  cheerful  yourself  as  you  let  on,"  he  said. 
"  You  've  not  got  much  color  to-day,  my  lass." 

She  rubbed  one  cheek  a  little,  trying  to  laugh. 

"I  shall  get  it  back  when  we  go  and  stay  with  grandmother. 
It  '&  just  staying  indoors  so  much.  Mr.  Tembarom  won't  be  long 


T.    TEMBAROM  69 

now ;  I  '11  get  up  and  set  the  table.  The  things  are  on  a  tray 
outside." 

As  she  was  going  out  of  the  room,  Jim  Bowles  and  Julius 
Steinberger  appeared  at  the  door. 

"  May  we  come  in  ?  "  Jim  asked  eagerly.  "  We  're  invited  to 
the  oyster  stew,  and  it's  time  old  T.  T.  was  here.  Julius  and 
me  are  just  getting  dippy  waiting  up-stairs  to  hear  if  he  's  made 
good  with  Galton." 

"Well,  now,  you  sit  down  and  be  quiet  a  bit,  or  you'll  be 
losing  your  appetites,"  advised  Ann. 

"  You  can't  lose  a  thing  the  size  of  mine,"  answered  Jim,  "  any 
more  than  you  could  lose  the  Metropolitan  Opera-house." 

Ann  turned  her  head  and  paused  as  though  she  were  listening. 
She  heard  footsteps  in  the  lower  hall. 

"  He 's  coming  now,"  she  announced.  "  I  know  his  step. 
He  's  tired.  Don't  go  yet,  you  two,"  she  added  as  the  pair  pre 
pared  to  rush  to  meet  him.  "  When  any  one  's  that  tired  he 
wants  to  wash  his  face,  and  talk  when  he's  ready.  If  you'll 
just  go  back  to  your  room  I  '11  call  you  when  I  've  set  the  table." 

She  felt  that  she  wanted  a  little  more  quiet  during  the  next 
few  minutes  than  she  could  have  if  they  remained  and  talked 
at  the  top  of  elated  voices.  She  had  not  quite  realized  how 
anxiously  she  had  been  waiting  all  day  for  the  hour  when  she 
would  hear  exactly  what  had  happened.  If  he  was  all  right,  it 
it  would  be  a  nice  thing  to  remember  when  she  was 
in  England.  In  this  moderate  form  she  expressed  herself  men 
tally.  "  It  would  be  a  nice  thing  to  remember."  She  spread 
the  cloth  on  the  table  and  began  to  lay  out  the  plates.  In 
voluntarily  she  found  herself  stopping  to  glance  at  the  hall 
bedroom  door  and  listen  rather  intently. 

"  I  hope  he 's  got  it.  I  do  that.  I  'm  sure  he  has.  He 
ought  to." 

Hutchinson  looked  over  at  her.  She  was  that  like  her  mother, 
that  lass ! 

"  You  're  excited,  Ann,"  he  said. 

"  Yes,  Father,  I  am  —  a  bit.  He 's  —  he 's  washing  his  face 
now."  Sounds  of  splashing  water  could  be  heard  through  the 
intervening  door. 


70  T.    TEMBAROM 

Hutchinson  watched  her  with  some  uneasiness. 

"  You  care  a  lot  for  that  lad/'  he  said. 

She  did  not  look  fluttered.     Her  answer  was  quite  candid. 

"  I  said  I  did,  Father.     He  's  taking  off  his  boots." 

"  You  know  every  sound  he  makes,  and  you  're  going  away 
Saturday,  and  you  '11  never  see  him  again." 

"  That  need  n't  stop  me  caring.  It  never  did  any  one  any 
harm  to  care  for  one  of  his  sort." 

"  But  it  can't  come  to  anything,"  Hutchinson  began  to  bluster. 
"It  won't  do—" 

"  He 's  coming  to  the  door,  he 's  turning  the  handle,"  said 
Little  Ann. 

Tembarom  came  in.  He  was  fresh  with  recent  face-washing, 
and  his  hair  was  damp,  so  that  a  short  lock  curled  and  stood  up. 
He  had  been  up-town  making  frantic  efforts  for  hours,  but  he 
had  been  making  them  in  a  spirit  of  victorious  relief,  and  he 
did  not  look  tired  at  all. 

"  I  've  got  it ! "  he  cried  out  the  moment  he  entered.  "  I  've 
got  it,  by  jingo !  The  job  's  mine  for  keeps." 

"  Galton  's  give  it  to  you  out  and  out  ? "  Hutchinson  was 
slightly  excited  himself. 

"  He 's  in  the  bulliest  humor  you  ever  saw.  He  says  I  've 
done  first-rate,  and  if  I  go  on,  he  '11  run  me  up  to  thirty." 

"  Well,  I  'm  danged  glad  of  it,  lad,  that  I  am !  "  Hutchin 
son  gave  in  handsomely.  "  You  put  backbone  into  it." 

Little  Ann  stood  near,  smiling.  Her  smile  met  Tembar- 
om's. 

"  I  know  you  're  glad,  Little  Ann,"  he  said.  "  I  'd  never 
have  got  there  but  for  you.  It  was  up  to  me,  after  the  way 
you  started  me." 

"  You  know  I  'm  glad  without  me  telling  you,"  she  answered. 
"  I  'm  rightdown  glad." 

And  it  was  at  this  moment  that  Mrs.  Bowse  came  into  the 
room. 

"  It 's  too  bad  it 's  happened  just  now,"  she  said,  much  flus 
tered.  "  That 's  the  way  with  things.  The  stew  '11  spoil,  but  he 
says  it's  real  important." 

Tembarom  caught  at  both  her  hands  and  shook  them. 


T.    TEMBAROM  71 

"  I  've  got  it,  Mrs.  Bowse.  Here 's  your  society  reporter ! 
The  best-looking  boarder  you  've  got  is  going  to  be  able  to  pay 
his  board  steady." 

"  I  'm  as  glad  as  can  be,  and  so  will  everybody  be.  I  knew 
you  'd  get  it.  But  this  gentleman 's  been  here  twice  to-day. 
He  says  he  really  must  see  you." 

"  Let  him  wait,"  Hutchinson  ordered.  "  What 's  the  chap 
want  ?  The  stew  won't  be  fit  to  eat." 

"  No,  it  won't,"  answered  Mrs.  Bowse ;  "  but  he  seems  to 
think  he  's  not  the  kind  to  be  put  off.  He  says  it 's  more  Mr. 
Tembarom's  business  than  his.  He  looked  real  mad  when  I 
showed  him  into  the  parlor,  where  they  were  playing  the  pian 
ola.  He  asked  was  n't  there  a  private  room  where  you  could 
talk." 

A  certain  flurried  interest  in  the  manner  of  Mrs.  Bowse,  a 
something  not  usually  awakened  by  inopportune  callers,  an  ac 
tual  suggestion  of  the  possible  fact  that  she  was  not  as  in 
different  as  she  was  nervous,  somewhat  awakened  Mr.  Hutchin- 
son's  curiosity. 

"  Look  here,"  he  volunteered,  "  if  he  's  got  any  real  business, 
he  can't  talk  over  to  the  tune  of  the  pianola  you  can  bring 
him  up  here,  Tembarom.  I  '11  see  he  don't  stay  long  if  his 
business  is  -n't  worth  talkin'  about.  He  '11  see  the  table  set  for 
supper,  and  that  '11  hurry  him." 

"  Oh,  gee !  I  wish  he  had  n't  come  !  "  said  Tembarom.  "  I  '11 
just  go  down  and  see  what  he  wants.  No  one  's  got  any  swell 
private  business  with  me" 

"  You  bring  him  up  if  he  has,"  said  Hutchinson.  "  We  'd 
like  to  hear  about  it." 

Tembarom  ran  down  the  stairs  quickly. 

No  one  had  ever  wanted  to  see  him  on  business  before. 
There  was  something  important-sounding  about  it;  perhaps 
things  were  starting  up  for  him  in  real  earnest.  It  might  be 
a  message  from  Galton,  though  he  could  not  believe  that  he 
had  at  this  early  stage  reached  such  a  distinction.  A  ghastly 
thought  shot  a  bolt  at  him,  but  he  shook  himself  free  of  it. 

"  He  's  not  a  fellow  to  go  back  on  his  word,  anyhow,"  he  in 
sisted. 


72  T.   TEMBAROM 

There  were  more  boarders  than  usual  in  the  parlor.  The 
young  woman  from  the  notion  counter  had  company,  and  one 
of  her  guests  was  playing  "  He  sut'nly  was  Good  to  Me  "  on 
the  pianola  with  loud  and  steady  tread  of  pedal. 

The  new  arrival  had  evidently  not  thought  it  worth  his  while 
to  commit  himself  to  permanency  by  taking  a  seat.  He  was 
standing  not  far  from  the  door  with  a  businesslike-looking 
envelop  in  one  hand  and  a  pince-nez  in  the  other,  with  which 
Tembarom  saw  he  was  rather  fretfully  tapping  the  envelop  as 
he  looked  about  him.  He  was  plainly  taking  in  the  character 
istics  of  the  room,  and  was  not  leniently  disposed  toward 
them.  His  tailor  was  clearly  an  excellent  one,  with  entirely 
correct  ideas  as  to  the  cut  and  material  which  exactly  befitted 
an  elderly  gentleman  of  some  impressiveness  in  the  position, 
whatsoever  it  happened  to  be,  which  he  held.  His  face  was 
not  of  a  friendly  type,  and  his  eyes  held  cold  irritation  dis 
creetly  restrained  by  businesslike  civility.  Tembarom  vaguely 
felt  the  genialities  of  the  oyster  supper  assume  a  rather  fourth- 
rate  air. 

The  caller  advanced  and  spoke  first. 

"  Mr.  Tembarom  ?  "  he  inquired. 

"  Yes/'  Tembarom  answered,  "  I  'm  T.  Tembarom." 

"  T.,"  repeated  the  stranger,  with  a  slightly  puzzled  ex 
pression.  "  Ah,  yes ;  I  see.  I  beg  pardon." 

In  that  moment  Tembarom  felt  that  he  was  looked  over,  taken 
in,  summed  up,  and  without  favor.  The  sharp,  steady  eye, 
however,  did  not  seem  tov  have  moved  from  his  face.  At  the 
same  time  it  had  aided  him  to  realize  that  he  was,  to  this 
well-dressed  person  at  least,  a  too  exhilarated  young  man  wear 
ing  a  ten-dollar  "hand-me-down." 

"  My  name  is  Palford,"  he  said  concisely.  "  That  will  con 
vey  nothing  to  you.  I  am  of  the  firm  of  Palford  &  Grimby  of 
Lincoln's  Inn.  This  is  my  card." 

Tembarom  took  the  card  and  read  that  Palford  &  Grimby 
were  "  solicitors,"  and  he  was  not  sure  that  he  knew  exactly 
what  "  solicitors  "  were. 

"Lincoln's  Inn?"  he  hesitated.  "That's  not  in  New 
York,  is  it?" 


T.   TEMBAROM  73 

"  No,  Mr.  Tembarom ;  in  London.     I  come  from  England." 

"You  must  have  had  bad  weather  crossing,"  said  Tem 
barom,  with  amiable  intent.  Somehow  Mr.  Palford  presented 
a  more  unyielding  surface  than  he  was  accustomed  to.  And 
yet  his  hard  courtesy  was  quite  perfect. 

"  I  have  been  here  some  weeks." 

"  I  hope  you  like  New  York.    Won't  you  have  a  seat  ?  " 

The  young  lady  from  the  notion  counter  and  her  friends  be 
gan  to  sing  the  chorus  of  "  He  sut'nly  was  Good  to  Me  "  with 
quite  professional  negro  accent. 

"  That  'a  just  the  way  May  Irwin  done  it,"  one  of  them 
laughed. 

Mr.  Palford  glanced  at  the  performers.  He  did  not  say 
whether  he  liked  New  York  or  not. 

"  I  asked  your  landlady  if  we  could  not  see  each  other  in 
a  private  room,"  he  said.  "It  would  not  be  possible  to  talk 
quietly  here." 

"  We  should  n't  have  much  of  a  show,"  answered  Tembarom, 
inwardly  wishing  he  knew  what  was  going  to  happen.  "  But 
there  are  no  private  rooms  in  the  house.  We  can  be  quieter 
than  this,  though,  if  we  go  up-stairs  to  Mr.  Hutchinson's  room. 
He  said  I  could  bring  you." 

"  That  would  be  much  better,"  replied  Mr.  Palford. 

Tembarom  led  him  out  of  the  room,  up  the  first  steep  and 
narrow  flight  of  stairs,  along  the  narrow  hall  to  the  second, 
up  that,  down  another  hall  to  the  third,  up  the  third,  and  on  to 
the  fourth.  As  he  led  the  way  he  realized  again  that  the  worn 
carpets,  the  steep  narrowness,  and  the  pieces  of  paper  unfor 
tunately  stripped  off  the  wall  at  intervals,  were  being  rather 
counted  against  him.  This  man  had  probably  never  been  in 
a  place  like  this  before  in  his  life,  and  he  did  n't  take  to  it. 

At  the  Hutchinsons'  door  he  stopped  and  explained: 

"  We  were  going  to  have  an  oyster  stew  here  because  the 
Hutchinsons  are  going  away;  but  Mr.  Hutchinson  said  we 
could  come  up." 

"  Very  kind  of  Mr.  Hutchinson,  I  'm  sure." 

Despite  his  stiffly  collected  bearing,  Mr.  Palford  looked  per 
haps  slightly  nervous  when  he  was  handed  into  the  bed-sitting- 


74  T.    TEMBAROM 

room,  and  found  himself  confronting  Hutchinson  and  Little 
Ann  and  the  tahle  set  for  the  oyster  stew.  It  is  true  that  he 
had  never  been  in  such  a  place  in  his  life,  that  for  many 
reasons  he  was  appalled,  and  that  he  was  beset  by  a  fear  that  he 
might  be  grotesquely  compelled  by  existing  circumstances  to 
accept  these  people's  invitation,  if  they  insisted  upon  his  sitting 
down  with  them  and  sharing  their  oyster  stew.  One  could  not 
calculate  on  what  would  happen  among  these  unknown  quanti 
ties.  It  might  be  their  idea  of  boarding-house  politeness. 
And  how  could  one  offend  them?  God  forbid  that  the  situa 
tion  should  intensify  itself  in  such  an  absurdly  trying  manner ! 
What  a  bounder  the  unfortunate  young  man  was !  His  own 
experience  had  not  been  such  as  to  assist  him  to  any  realistic  en 
lightenment  regarding  him,  even  when  he  had  seen  the  society 
page  and  had  learned  that  he  had  charge  of  it. 

"  Let  me  make  you  acquainted  with  Mr.  and  Miss  Hutchin 
son/'  Tembarom  introduced.  "  This  is  Mr.  Palford,  Mr. 
Hutchinson." 

Hutchinson,  half  hidden  behind  his  newspaper,  jerked  his 
head  and  grunted: 

"  Glad  to  see  you,  sir." 

Mr.  Palford  bowed,  and  took  the  chair  Tembarom  presented. 

"  I  am  much  obliged  to  you,  Mr.  Hutchinson,  for  allowing  me 
to  come  to  your  room.  I  have  business  to  discuss  with  Mr.  Tem 
barom,  and  the  pianola  was  being  played  down-stairs  —  rather 
loudly." 

"  They  do  it  every  night,  dang  'em !  Eight  under  my  bed," 
growled  Hutchinson.  "  You  're  an  Englishman,  are  n't  you  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  So  am  I,  thank  God ! "  Hutchinson  devoutly  gave  forth. 

Little  Ann  rose  from  her  chair,  sewing  in  hand. 

"  Father  '11  come  and  sit  with  me  in  my  room,"  she  said. 

Hutchinson  looked  grumpy.  He  did  not  intend  to  leave  the 
field  clear  and  the  stew  to  its  fate  if  he  could  help  it.  He  gave 
Ann  a  protesting  frown. 

"  I  dare  say  Mr.  Palford  does  n't  mind  us,"  he  said.  "  We  're 
not  strangers." 


T.    TEMBAKOM  75 

"  Not  in  the  least,"  Palford  protested.  "  Certainly  not.  If 
you  are  old  friends,  you  may  be  able  to  assist  us." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  about  that,"  Hutchinson  answered, 
"We've  not  known  him  long,  but  we  know  him  pretty  well. 
You  come  from  London,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  Yes.     From  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields." 

"  Law  ?  "  grunted  Hutchinson. 

"  Yes.     Of  the  firm  of  Palford  &  Grimby." 

Hutchinson  moved  in  his  chair  involuntarily.  There  was 
stimulation  to  curiosity  in  this.  This  chap  was  a  regular  top 
sawyer  —  clothes,  way  of  pronouncing  his  words,  manners, 
everything.  No  mistaking  him  —  old  family  solicitor  sort  of 
chap.  What  on  earth  could  he  have  to  say  to  Tembarom? 
Tembarom  himself  had  sat  down  and  could  not  be  said  to  look 
at  his  ease. 

"  I  do  not  intrude  without  the  excuse  of  serious  business," 
Palford  explained  to  him.  "  A  great  deal  of  careful  research 
and  inquiry  has  finally  led  me  here.  I  am  compelled  to  believe 
I  have  followed  the  right  clue,  but  I  must  ask  you  a  few  ques 
tions.  Your  name  is  not  really  Tembarom,  is  it  ?  " 

Hutchinson  looked  at  Tembarom  sharply. 

"  Not  Tembarom  ?     What  does  he  mean,  lad  ?  " 

Tembarom's  grin  was  at  once  boyish  and  ashamed. 

"  Well,  it  is  in  one  way,"  he  answered,  "  and  it  is  n't  in  an 
other.  The  fellows  at  school  got  into  the  way  of  calling  me 
that  way, —  to  save  time,  I  guess, —  and  I  got  to  like  it. 
They  'd  have  guyed  my  real  name.  Most  of  them  never  knew 
it.  I  can't  see  why  any  one  ever  called  a  child  by  such  a  fool 
name,  anyhow." 

"What  was  it  exactly?" 

Tembarom  looked  almost  sheepish. 

"  It  sounds  like  a  thing  in  a  novel.  It  was  Temple  Temple 
Barholm.  Two  Temples,  by  gee  !  As  if  one  was  n't  enough !  " 

Joseph  Hutchinson  dropped  his  paper  and  almost  started  from 
his  chair.  His  red  face  suddenly  became  so  much  redder  that 
he  looked  a  trifle  apoplectic. 

"  Temple  Barholm  does  tha  say  ?  "  he  cried  out. 


76  T.   TEMBAROM 

Mr.  Palford  raised  his  hand  and  checked  him,  but  with  a 
suggestion  of  stiff  apology. 

"If  you  will  kindly  allow  me.  Did  you  ever  hear  your 
father  refer  to  a  place  called  Temple  Barholm  ?  "  he  inquired. 

Tembarom  reflected  as  though  sending  his  thoughts  back 
ward  into  a  pretty  thoroughly  forgotten  and  ignored  past. 
There  had  been  no  reason  connected  with  filial  affection  which 
should  have  caused  him  to  recall  memories  of  his  father.  They 
had  not  liked  each  other.  He  had  known  that  he  had  been 
resented  and  looked  down  upon  as  a  characteristically  American 
product.  His  father  had  more  than  once  said  he  was  a 
"common  American  lad,"  and  he  had  known  he  was. 

"Seems  to  me/'  he  said  at  last,  ''that  once  when  he  was 
pretty  mad  at  his  luck  I  heard  him  grumbling  about  English 
laws,  and  he  said  some  of  his  distant  relations  were  swell  people 
who  would  never  think  of  speaking  to  him, —  perhaps  didn't 
know  he  was  alive, —  and  they  lived  in  a  big  way  in  a  place 
that  was  named  after  the  family.  He  never  saw  it  or  them,  and 
he  said  that  was  the  way  in  England  —  one  fellow  got  every 
thing  and  the  rest  were  paupers  like  himself.  He  'd  always 
been  poor." 

"  Yes,  the  relation  was  a  distant  one.  Until  this  investiga 
tion  began  the  family  knew  nothing  of  him.  The  inquiry  has 
been  a  tiresome  one.  I  trust  I  am  reaching  the  end  of  it.  We 
have  given  nearly  two  years  to  following  this  clue." 

"  What  for  ?  "  burst  forth  Tembarom,  sitting  upright. 

"Because  it  was  necessary  to  find  either  George  Temple 
Barholm  or  his  son,  if  he  had  one." 

"  I  'm  his  son,  all  right,  but  he  died  when  I  was  eight  years 
old,"  Tembarom  volunteered.  "I  don't  remember  much  about 
him." 

"  You  remember  that  he  was  not  an  American  ?  " 

"He  was  English.  Hated  it;  but  he  wasn't  fond  of 
America," 

"  Have  you  any  papers  belonging  to  him  ?  " 

Tembarom  hesitated  again. 

"There's  a  few  old  letters  —  oh,  and  one  of  those 


T.    TEMBAKOM  77 

photographs  in  a  case.  I  believe  it's  my  grandfather  and 
grandmother,  taken  when  they  were  married.  Him  on  a  chair, 
you  know,  and  her  standing  with  her  hand  on  his  shoulder." 

"  Can  you  show  them  to  me  ?  "  Palf ord  suggested. 

"  Sure,"   Tembarom  answered,  getting  up   from  his-  seat 
"They're  in  my  room.     I  turned  them  up  yesterday  among 
some  other  things." 

When  he  left  them,  Mr.  Palford  sat  gently  rubbing  his  chin. 
Hutehinson  wanted  to  burst  forth  with  questions,  but  he  looked 
so  remote  and  acidly  dignified  that  there  was  a  suggestion  of 
boldness  in  the  idea  of  intruding  on  his  reflections.  Hutehin 
son  stared  at  him  and  breathed  hard  and  short  in  his  suspense. 
The  stiff  old  chap  was  thinking  things  over  and  putting  things 
together  in  his  lawyer's  way.  He  was  entirely  oblivious  to  his 
surroundings.  Little  Ann  went  on  with  her  mending,  but  she 
wore  her  absorbed  look,  and  it  was  not  a  result  of  her  work. 

Tembarom  came  back  with  some  papers  in  his  hand.  They 
were  yellowed  old  letters,  and  on  the  top  of  the  package  there 
was  a  worn  daguerreotype-case  with  broken  clasp. 

"  Here  they  are,"  he  said,  giving  them  to  Palford.  "  I  guess 
they  'd  just  been  married,"  opening  the  case.  "  Get  on  to  her 
embroidered  collar  and  big  breast-pin  with  his  picture  in  it. 
That's  English  enough,  isn't  it?  He'd  given  it  to  her  for  a 
wedding-present.  There  's  something  in  one  of  the  letters  about 
it." 

It  was  the  letters  to  which  Mr.  Palford  gave  the  most  atten 
tion.  He  read  them  and  examined  post-marks  and  dates. 
When  he  had  finished,  he  rose  from  his  chair  with  a  slightly 
portentous  touch  of  professional  ceremony. 

"  Yes,  those  are  sufficiently  convincing.  You  are  a  very  for 
tunate  young  man.  Allow  me  to  congratulate  you." 

He  did  not  look  particularly  pleased,  though  he  extended  his 
hand  and  shook  Tembarom's  politely.  He  was  rigorously  en 
deavoring  to  conceal  that  he  found  himself  called  upon  to  make 
the  best  of  an  extremely  bad  job.  Hutehinson  started  for 
ward,  resting  his  hands  on  his  knees  and  glaring  with  ill-sup 
pressed  excitement. 


78  T.    TEMBAEOM 

"  What 's  that  for  ?  "  Tembarom  said.  He  felt  rather  like  a 
fool.  He  laughed  half  nervously.  It  seemed  to  be  up  to  him 
to  understand,  and  he  did  n't  understand  in  the  least. 

"You  have,  through  your  father's  distant  relationship,  in 
herited  a  very  magnificent  property  —  the  estate  of  Temple 
Barholm  in  Lancashire,"  Palford  began  to  explain,  but  Mr. 
Hutchinson  sprang  from  his  chair  outright,  crushing  his  paper 
in  his  hand. 

"  Temple  Barholm ! "  he  almost  shouted,  "  I  dunnot  believe 
thee !  Why,  it 's  one  of  th'  oldest  places  in  England  and  one  of 
th'  biggest.  Th'  Temple  Barholms  as  did  n't  come  over  with 
th'  Conqueror  was  there  before  him.  Some  of  them  was  Saxon 
kings !  And  him  — "  pointing  a  stumpy,  red  finger  disparagingly 
at  Tembarom,  aghast  and  incredulous  — "  that  New  York  lad 
that 's  sold  newspapers  in  the  streets  —  you  say  he  's  come  into 
it?" 

"  Precisely."  Mr.  Palford  spoke  with  some  crispness  of  diction. 
Noise  and  bluster  annoyed  him.  "  That  is  my  business  here. 
Mr.  Tembarom  is,  in  fact,  Mr.  Temple  Temple  Barholm  of 
Temple  Barholm,  which  you  seem  to  have  heard  of." 

"  Heard  of  it !  My  mother  was  born  in  the  village  an'  lives 
there  yet.  Art  tha  struck  dumb,  lad !  "  he  said  almost  fiercely 
to  Tembarom.  "  By  Judd !  Tha  well  may  be !  " 

Tembarom  was  standing  holding  the  back  of  a  chair.  He 
was  pale,  and  had  once  opened  his  mouth,  and  then  gulped 
and  shut  it.  Little  Ann  had  dropped  her  sewing.  His  first 
look  had  leaped  to  her,  and  she  had  looked  back  straight  into 
his  eyes. 

"  I  'm  struck  something,"  he  said,  his  half-laugh  slightly 
unsteady.  "  Who  'd  blame  me  ?  " 

"  You  'd  better  sit  down,"  said  Little  Ann.  "  Sudden  things 
are  upsetting." 

He  did  sit  down.  He  felt  rather  shaky.  He  touched  him 
self  on  his  chest  and  laughed  again. 

"Me!"  he  said.  "T.  T.!  Hully  gee!  It's  like  a  turn 
at  a  vaudeville." 

The  sentiment  prevailing  in  Hutchinson's  mind  seemed  to 
verge  on  indignation. 


T.    TEMBAKOM  79 

"  Thee  th'  master  of  Temple  Barholm ! "  he  ejaculated. 
"  Why,  it  stood  for  seventy  thousand  pound'  a  year !  " 

"It  did  and  it  does,"  said  Mr.  Palford,  curtly.  He  had  less 
and  less  taste  for  the  situation.  There  was  neither  dignity 
nor  proper  sentiment  in  it.  The  young  man  was  utterly  in 
capable  of  comprehending  the  meaning  and  proportions  of  the 
extraordinary  event  which  had  befallen  him.  It  appeared  to 
present  to  him  the  aspect  of  a  somewhat  slangy  New  York 
joke. 

"You  do  not  seem  much  impressed,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,'* 
he  said. 

"  Oh,  I  'm  impressed,  all  right,"  answered  Tembarom,  "  but, 
say,  this  thing  can't  be  true !  You  could  n't  make  it  true  if 
you  sat  up  all  night  to  do  it." 

"When  I  go  into  the  business  details  of  the  matter  to 
morrow  morning  you  will  realize  the  truth  of  it,"  said  Mr. 
Palford.  "  Seventy  thousand  pounds  a  year  —  and  Temple 
Barholm  —  are  not  unsubstantial  facts." 

"  Three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  my  lad  —  that 's 
what  it  stands  for ! "  put  in  Mr.  Hutchinson. 

"  Well,"  said  Tembarom,  "  I  guess  I  can  worry  along  on 
that  if  I  try  hard  enough.  I  mayn't  be  able  to  keep  myself 
in  the  way  I  've  been  used  to,  but  I  've  got  to  make  it  do." 

Mr.  Palford  stiffened.  He  did  not  know  that  the  garish,  flip 
pant-sounding  joking  was  the  kind  of  defense  the  streets  of 
New  York  had  provided  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  with  in  many 
an  hour  when  he  had  been  a  half-clad  newsboy  with  an  empty 
stomach,  and  a  bundle  of  unsold  newspapers  under  his  arm. 

"  You  are  jocular,"  he  said.  "  I  find  the  New  Yorkers  are 
given  to  being  jocular  —  continuously." 

Tembarom  looked  at  him  rather  searchingly.  PalfordJ 
wouldn't  have  found  it  possible  to  believe  that  the  young  man 
knew  all  about  his  distaste  and  its  near  approach  to  disgust, 
that  he  knew  quite  well  what  he  thought  of  his  ten-dollar 
suit,  his  ex-newsboy's  diction,  and  his  entire  incongruousness 
as  a  factor  in  any  circumstances  connected  with  dignity  and 
splendor.  He  would  certainly  not  have  credited  the  fact 
that  though  he  had  not  the  remotest  idea  what  sort  of  a  place 


80  T.   TEMBAROM 

Temple  Barholm  was,  and  what  sort  of  men  its  long  line  of 
possessors  had  been,  he  had  gained  a  curious  knowledge  of  their 
significance  through  the  mental  attitude  of  their  legal  repre 
sentative  when  he  for  a  moment  failed  to  conceal  his  sense  of 
actual  revolt. 

"It  seems  sort  of  like  a  joke  till  you  get  on  to  it,"  he  said. 
"But  I  guess  it  ain't  such  a  merry  jest  as  it  seems." 

And  then  Mr.  Palford  did  begin  to  observe  that  he  had  lost 
his  color  entirely;  also  that  he  had  a  rather  decent,  sharp-cut 
face,  and  extremely  white  and  good  young  teeth,  which  he 
showed  not  unattractively  when  he  smiled.  And  he  smiled 
frequently,  but  he  was  not  smiling  now. 


N  the  course  of  the  interview  given  to  the  ex 
plaining  of  business  and  legal  detail  which 
took  place  between  Mr.  Palford  and  his  client 
the  following  morning,  Tembarom's  knowl 
edge  of  his  situation  extended  itself  largely, 
and  at  the  same  time  added  in  a  proportion 
ate  degree  to  his  sense  of  his  own  incongru 
ity  as  connected  with  it.  He  sat  at  a  table  in 
Palford's  private  sitting-room  at  the  respect 
able,  old-fashioned  hotel  the  solicitor  had  chosen  —  sat  and 
listened,  and  answered  questions  and  asked  them,  until  his  head 
began  to  feel  as  though  it  were  crammed  to  bursting  with  ex 
traordinary  detail. 

It  was  all  extraordinary  to  him.  He  had  had  no  time  for 
reading  and  no  books  to  read,  and  therefore  knew  little  of  fic 
tion.  He  was  entirely  ignorant  of  all  romance  but  such  as  the 
New  York  "papers  provided.  This  was  highly  colored,  but  it 
did  not  deal  with  events  connected  with  the  possessors  of  vast 
English  estates  and  the  details  of  their  habits  and  customs. 
His  geographical  knowledge  of  Great  Britain  was  simple  and 
largely  incorrect.  Information  concerning  its  usual  conditions 
and  aspects  had  come  to  him  through  talk  of  international 
marriages  and  cup  races,  and  had  made  but  little  impression 
upon  him.  He  liked  New  York  —  its  noise,  its  streets,  its 
glare,  its  Sunday  newspapers,  with  their  ever-increasing  number 
of  sheets,  and  pictures  of  everything  on  earth  which  could  be 
photographed.  His  choice,  when  he  could  allow  himself  a 
fifty-cent  seat  at  the  theater,  naturally  ran  to  productions  which 
were  farcical  or  cheerfully  musical.  He  had  never  reached 
serious  drama,  perhaps  because  he  had  never  had  money  enough 
to  pay  for  entrance  to  anything  like  half  of  the  "  shows  "  the 
other  fellows  recommended.  He  was  totally  unprepared  for  the 

81 


82  T.    TEMBAROM 

facing  of  any  kind  of  drama  as  connected  with  himself.  The 
worst  of  it  was  that  it  struck  him  as  being  of  the  nature  of  farce 
when  regarded  from  the  normal  New  York  point  of  view.  If 
he  had  somehow  had  the  luck  to  come  into  the  possession  of 
money  in  ways  which  were  familiar  to  him, —  to  "  strike  it 
rich  "  in  the  way  of  a  "  big  job  "  or  "  deal," —  he  would  have 
been  better  able  to  adjust  himself  to  circumstances.  He  might 
not  have  known  how  to  spend  his  money,  but  he  would  have 
spent  it  in  New  York  on  New  York  joys.  There  would  have 
been  no  foreign  remoteness  about  the  thing,  howsoever  fantas 
tically  unexpected  such  fortune  might  have  been.  At  any  rate, 
in  New  York  he  would  have  known  the  names  of  places  and 
things. 

Through  a  large  part  of  his  interview  with  Palford  his  el 
bow  rested  on  the  table,  and  he  held  his  chin  with  his  hand  and 
rubbed  it  thoughtfully.  The  last  Temple  Temple  Barholm  had 
been  an  eccentric  and  uncompanionable  person.  He  had  lived 
alone  and  had  not  married.  He  had  cherished  a  prejudice 
against  the  man  who  would  have  succeeded  him  as  next  of  kin 
if  he  had  not  died  young.  People  had  been  of  the  opinion  that 
he  had  disliked  him  merely  because  he  did  not  wish  to  be  re 
minded  that  some  one  else  must  some  day  inevitably  stand  in 
his  shoes,  and  own  the  possessions  of  which  he  himself  was 
arrogantly  fond.  There  were  always  more  female  Temple 
Barholms  than  male  ones,  and  the  families  were  small.  The 
relative  who  had  emigrated  to  Brooklyn  had  been  a  compara 
tively  unknown  person.  His  only  intercourse  with  the  head  of 
the  house  had  been  confined  to  a  begging  letter,  written  from 
America  when  his  circumstances  were  at  their  worst.  It  was 
an  ill-mannered  and  ill-expressed  letter,  which  had  been  con 
sidered  presuming,  and  had  been  answered  chillingly  with  a 
mere  five-pound  note,  clearly  explained  as  a  final  charity.  This 
begging  letter,  which  bitterly  contrasted  the  writer's  poverty 
with  his  indifferent  relative's  luxuries,  had,  by  a  curious  trick 
of  chance  which  preserved  it,  quite  extraordinarily  turned  up 
during  an  examination  of  apparently  unimportant,  forgotten 
papers,  and  had  furnished  a  clue  in  the  search  for  next  of  kin. 
The  writer  had  greatly  annoyed  old  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  by 


T.    TEMBAKOM  83 

telling  him  that  he  had  called  his  son  by  his  name  — "  not  that 
there  was  ever  likely  to  be  anything  in  it  for  him."  But  a 
waif  of  the  New  York  streets  who  was  known  as  "  Tern  "  or 
"  Tembarom  "  was  not  a  link  easily  attached  to  any  chain,  and 
the  search  had  been  long  and  rather  hopeless.  It  had,  how 
ever,  at  last  reached  Mrs.  Bowse's  boarding-house  and  before 
Mr.  Palford  sat  Mr.  Temple  Temple  Barholm,  a  cheap  young 
man  in  cheap  clothes,  and  speaking  New  York  slang  with  a 
nasal  accent.  Mr.  Palford,  feeling  him  appalling  and  absolutely 
without  the  pale,  was  still  aware  that  he  stood  in  the  position 
of  an  important  client  of  the  firm  of  Palford  &  Grimby.  There 
was  a  section  of  the  offices  at  Lincoln's  Inn  devoted  to  docu 
ments  representing  a  lifetime  of  attention  to  the  affairs  of  the 
Temple  Barholm  estates.  It  was  greatly  to  be  hoped  that  the 
crass  ignorance  and  commonness  of  this  young  outsider  would 
not  cause  impossible  complications. 

"  He  knows  nothing !  He  knows  nothing !  "  Palford  found 
himself  forced  to  exclaim  mentally  not  once,  but  a  hundred 
times,  in  the  course  of  their  talk. 

There  was  —  this  revealed  itself  as  the  interview  proceeded 
—  just  one  slight  palliation  of  his  impossible  benightedness : 
he  was  not  the  kind  of  young  man  who,  knowing  nothing,  huffily 
protects  himself  by  pretending  to  know  everything.  He  was 
of  an  unreserve  concerning  his  ignorance  which  his  solicitor 
felt  sometimes  almost  struck  one  in  the  face.  Now  and  then 
it  quite  made  one  jump.  He  was  singularly  free  from  any 
vestige  of  personal  vanity.  He  was  also  singularly  unready 
to  take  offense.  To  the  head  of  the  firm  of  Palford  &  Grimby, 
who  was  not  accustomed  to  lightness  of  manner,  and  inclined 
to  the  view  that  a  person  who  made  a  joke  took  rather  a  liberty 
with  him,  his  tendency  to  be  jocular,  even  about  himself  and  the 
estate  of  Temple  Barholm,  was  irritating  and  somewhat  disre 
spectful.  Mr.  Palford  did  not  easily  comprehend  jokes  of  any 
sort ;  especially  was  he  annoyed  by  cryptic  phraseology  and  mam 
moth  exaggeration.  For  instance,  he  could  not  in  the  least  com 
pass  Mr.  Temple  Barholm's  meaning  when  he  casually  remarked 
that  something  or  other  was  "  all  to  the  merry  " ;  or  again,  quite 
as  though  he  believed  that  he  was  using  reasonable  English 


84  T.    TEMBAROM 

figures  of  speech,  "The  old  fellow  thought  he  was  the  only 
pebble  on  the  beach."  In  using  the  latter  expression  he  had 
been  referring  to  the  late  Mr.  Temple  Barholm;  but  what  on 
earth  was  his  connection  with  the  sea-shore  and  pebbles? 
When  confronted  with  these  baffling  absurdities,  Mr.  Palford 
either  said.  "  I  beg  pardon,"  or  stiffened  and  remained  silent. 

When  Tembarom  learned  that  he  was  the  head  of  one  of  the 
oldest  families  in  England,  no  aspect  of  the  desirable  dignity 
of  his  position  reached  him  in  the  least. 

"  Well,"  he  remarked,  "  there  }s  quite  a  lot  of  us  can  go  back 
to  Adam  and  Eve." 

When  he  was  told  that  he  was  lord  of  the  manor  of  Temple 
Barholm,  he  did  not  know  what  a  manor  was. 

"What's  a  manor,  and  what  happens  if  you're  lord  of  it?" 
he  asked. 

He  had  not  heard  of  William  the  Conqueror,  and  did  not  ap 
pear  moved  to  admiration  of  him,  though  he  owned  that  he 
seemed  to  have  "  put  it  over." 

"Why  didn't  he  make  a  republic  of  it  while  he  was  about 
it  ?  "  he  said.  "  But  I  guess  that  was  n't  his  kind.  He  did  n't 
do  all  that  fighting  for  his  health." 

His  interest  was  not  alone  totally  dissevered  from  the  events 
of  past  centuries;  it  was  as  dissevered  from  those  of  mere  past 
years.  The  habits,  customs,  and  points  of  view  of  five  years 
before  seemed  to  have  been  cast  into  a  vast  waste-paper  bas 
ket  as  wholly  unpractical  in  connection  with  present  experi 
ences. 

"A  man  that's  going  to  keep  up  with  the  procession  can't 
waste  time  thinking  about  yesterday.  What  he 's  got  to  do  is 
to  keep  his  eye  on  what 's  going  to  happen  the  week  after  next," 
he  summed  it  up. 

Rather  to  Mr.  Palford's  surprise,  he  did  not  speak  lightly, 
but  with  a  sort  of  inner  seriousness.  It  suggested  that  he  had 
not  arrived  at  this  conclusion  without  the  aid  of  sharp  expe 
rience.  Now  and  then  one  saw  a  touch  of  this  profound  prac 
tical  perception  in  him. 

It  was  not  to  be  denied  that  he  was  clear-headed  enough 
where  purely  practical  business  detail  was  concerned.  He  was 


T.    TEMBAROM  85 

at  first  plainly  rather  stunned  by  the  proportions  presented  to 
him,  but  his  questions  were  direct  and  of  a  common-sense  order 
not  to  be  despised. 

"  I  don't  know  anything  about  it  yet,"  he  said  once.  "  It 's 
all  Dutch  to  me.  I  can't  calculate  in  half-crowns  and  pounds 
and  half  pounds,  but  I  'm  going  to  find  out.  I  've  got  to." 

It  was  extraordinary  and  annoying  to  feel  that  one  must  ex 
plain  everything;  but  this  impossible,  fellow  was  not  an  actual 
fool  on  all  points,  and  he  did  not  seem  to  be  a  weakling.  He 
might  learn  certain  things  in  time,  and  at  all  events  one  was 
no  further  personally  responsible  for  him  and  his  impossibilities 
than  the  business  concerns  of  his  estate  would  oblige  any  legal 
firm  to  be.  Clients,  whether  highly  desirable  or  otherwise, 
were  no  more  than  clients.  They  were  not  relatives  whom 
one  must  introduce  to  one's  friends.  Thus  Mr.  Palford,  who 
was  not  a  specially  humane  or  sympathetic  person,  mentally 
decided.  He  saw  no  pathos  in  this  raw  young  man,  who  would 
presently  find  himself  floundering  unaided  in  waters  utterly  un 
known  to  him.  There  was  even  a  touch  of  bitter  amusement  in 
the  solicitor's  mind  as  he  glanced  toward  the  future. 

He  explained  with  detail  the  necessity  for  their  immediate 
departure  for  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Certain  legal 
formalities  which  must  at  once  be  attended  to  demanded  their 
presence  in  England.  Foreseeing  this,  on  the  day  when  he  had 
finally  felt  himself  secure  as  to  the  identity  of  his  client  he  had 
taken  the  liberty  of  engaging  optionally  certain  state-rooms  on 
the  Adriana,  sailing  the  following  Wednesday. 

"  Subject  of  course  to  your  approval,"  he  added  politely. 
"  But  it  is  imperative  that  we  should  be  on  the  spot  as  early  as 
possible."  He  did  not  mention  that  he  himself  was  abominably 
tired  of  his  sojourn  on  alien  shores,  and  wanted  to  be  back  in 
London  in  his  own  chambers,  with  his  own  club  within  easy 
reach. 

Tembarom's  face  changed  its  expression.  He  had  been  look 
ing  rather  weighted  down  and  fatigued,  and  he  lighted  up  to 
eagerness. 

"  Say,"  he  exclaimed,  "  why  could  n't  we  go  on  the  Trans 
atlantic  on  Saturday  ?  " 


86  T.    TEMBAROM 

"It  is  one  of  the  small,  cheap  boats,"  objected  Palford. 
"  The  accommodation  would  be  most  inferior." 

Tembarom  leaned  forward  and  touched  his  sleeve  in  hasty, 
boyish  appeal. 

"  I  want  to  go  on  it,"  he  said ;  "  I  want  to  go  steerage." 

Palford  stared  at  him. 

"You  want  to  go  on  the  Transatlantic!  Steerage !  "  he  ejac 
ulated,  quite  aghast.  This  was  a  novel  order  of  madness  to  re 
veal  itself  in  the  recent  inheritor  of  a  great  fortune. 

Tembarom's  appeal  grew  franker ;  it  took  on  the  note  of  a  too 
crude  young  fellow's  misplaced  confidence. 

"  You  do  this  for  me,"  he  said.  "  I  'd  give  a  farm  to  go  on 
that  boat.  The  Hutchinsons  are  sailing  on  it  —  Mr.  and  Miss 
Hutchinson,  the  ones  you  saw  at  the  house  last  night." 

"I  —  it  is  really  impossible."     Mr.  Palford  hesitated.     " As 
to  steerage,  my  dear  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,  you  —  you  can't" 
»     Tembarom  got  up  and  stood  with  his  hands  thrust  deep  in 
his  pockets.     It  seemed  to  be  a  sort  of  expression  of  his  sudden 
hopeful  excitement. 

"Why  not?"  he  said.  "If  I  own  about  half  of  England 
and  have  money  to  burn,  I  guess  I  can  buy  a  steerage  passage 
on  a  nine-day  steamer." 

"You  can  buy  anything  you  like,"  Palford  answered  stiffly. 
"  It  is  not  a  matter  of  buying.  But  I  should  not  be  conduct 
ing  myself  properly  toward  you  if  I  allowed  it.  It  would  not 
be  —  becoming." 

"  Becoming !  "  cried  Tembarom,  "  Thunder !  It 's  not  a 
spring  hat.  I  tell  you  I  want  to  go  just  that  way." 

Palford  saw  abnormal  breakers  ahead.  He  felt  that  he  would 
be  glad  when  he  had  landed  his  charge  safely  at  Temple  Barholm. 
Once  there,  his  family  solicitor  was  not  called  upon  to  live  with 
him  and  hobnob  with  his  extraordinary  intimates. 

"  As  to  buying,"  he  said,  still  with  marked  lack  of  enthusiasm, 
"  instead  of  taking  a  steerage  passage  on  the  Transatlantic  your 
self,  you  might  no  doubt  secure  first-class  state-rooms  for  Mr. 
and  Miss  Hutchinson  on  the  Adriana,  though  I  seriously  advise 
against  it." 

Tembarom  shook  his  head. 


T.    TEMBAEOM  87 

"  You  don't  know  them,"  he  said.  "  They  would  n't  let  me. 
Hutchinson  's  a  queer  old  fellow  and  he  's  had  the  hardest  kind 
of  luck,  but  he 's  as  proud  as  they  make  'em.  Me  butt  in  and 
offer  to  pay  their  passage  back,  as  if  they  were  paupers,  just 
because  I  've  suddenly  struck  it  rich !  Hully  gee !  I  guess 
not.  A  fellow  that 's  been  boosted  up  in  the  air  all  in  a  minute, 
as  I  have,  has  got  to  lie  pretty  low  to  keep  folks  from  wanting 
to  kick  him,  anyhow.  Hutchinson 's  a  darned  sight  smarter 
fellow  than  I  am,  and  he  knows  it  —  and  he  's  Lancashire,  you 
bet."  He  stopped  a  minute  and  flushed.  "  As  to  Little  Ann," 
he  said  — "  me  make  that  sort  of  a  break  with  her!  Well,  I 
should  be  a  fool." 

Palford  was  a  cold-blooded  and  unimaginative  person,  but  a 
long  legal  experience  had  built  up  within  him  a  certain  shrewd 
ness  of  perception.  He  had  naturally  glanced  once  or  twice  at 
the  girl  sitting  still  at  her  mending,  and  he  had  observed  that 
she  said  very  little  and  had  a  singularly  quiet,  firm  little  voice. 

"  I  beg  pardon.  You  are  probably  right.  I  had  very  little 
conversation  with  either  of  them.  Miss  Hutchinson  struck  me 
as  having  an  intelligent  face." 

"  She  's  a  wonder,"  said  Tembarom,  devoutly.  "  She 's  just 
a  wonder/' 

"  Under  the  circumstances,"  suggested  Mr.  Palford,  "  it  might 
not  be  a  bad  idea  to  explain  to  her  your  idea  of  the  steerage 
passage.  An  intelligent  girl  can  often  give  excellent  advice. 
You  will  probably  have  an  opportunity  of  speaking  to  her  to 
night.  Did  you  say  they  were  sailing  to-morrow  ?  " 

To-morrow !  That  brought  it  so  near  that  it  gave  Tembarom 
a  shock.  He  had  known  that  they  sailed  on  Saturday,  and 
now  Saturday  had  become  to-morrow.  Things  began  to  surge 
through  his  mind  —  all  sorts  of  things  he  had  no  time  to 
think  of  clearly,  though  it  was  true  they  had  darted  vaguely 
about  in  the  delirious  excitement  of  the  night,  during  which 
he  had  scarcely  slept  at  all.  His  face  changed  again,  and  the 
appeal  died  out  of  it.  He  began  to  look  anxious  and  rest 
less. 

"Yes,  they're  going  to-morrow,"  he  answered. 

"You    see,"    argued    Mr.    Palford,    with    conviction,    "how 


88  T.   TEMBAROM 

impossible  it  would  be  for  us  to  make  any  arrangements  in  so 
few  hours.  You  will  excuse  my  saying,"  he  added  punctiliously, 
"that  I  could  not  make  the  voyage  in  the  steerage." 

Tembarom  laughed.     He  thought  he  saw  him  doing  it. 

"  That 's  so,"  he  said.  Then,  with  renewed  hope,  he  added, 
"  Say,  I  'm  going  to  try  and  get  them  to  wait  till  Wednesday." 

"I  do  not  think — "  Mr.  Pal  ford  began,  and  then  felt  it 
wiser  to  leave  things  as  they  were.  "  But  I  'm  not  qualified 
to  give  an  opinion.  I  do  not  know  Miss  Hutchinson  at  all." 

But  the  statement  was  by  no  means  frank.  He  had  a 
private  conviction  that  he  did  know  her  to  a  certain  degree. 
And  he  did. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HERE  was  a  slight  awkwardness  even  to 
Tembarom  in  entering  the  dining-room  that 
evening.  He  had  not  seen  his  fellow  board 
ers,  as  his  restless  night  had  made  him  sleep 
later  than  usual.  But  Mrs.  Bowse  had  told 
.if  him  of  the  excitement  he  had  caused. 

"  They    just    could  n't    eat,"    she    said. 
"  They  could  do  nothing  but  talk  and  talk 
and  ask  questions;  and  I   had  waffles,  too, 
and  they  got  stone-cold." 

The  babel  of  friendly  outcry  which  broke  out  on  his  entry 
was  made  up  of  jokes,  ejaculations,  questions,  and  congratu 
latory  outbursts  from  all  sides. 

"Good  old  T.  T.!"  "Give  him  a  Harvard  yell!  Rah! 
Rah!  Rah!"  "Lend  me  fifty-five  cents?"  "Where's  your 
tiara?"  "Darned  glad  of  it!"  "Make  us  a  speech!" 

"  Say,  people,"  said  Tembarom,  "  don't  you  get  me  rattled 
or  I  can't  tell  you  anything.     I  'm  rattled  enough  already." 
"Well,  is  it  true?"  called  out  Mr.  Striper. 
"  No,"  Tembarom  answered  back,  sitting  down.    "  It  could  n't 
be;    that's    what    I    told    Palford.     I    shall    wake    up    in    a 
minute  or  two  and  find  myself  in  a  hospital  with  a  peacherino 
of   a   trained   nurse    smoothing   'me   piller/    You    can't   fool 
me  with  a  pipe-dream  like  this.     Palford 's  easier ;  he  's  not  a 
New  Yorker.     He  says  it  is  true,  and  I  can't  get  out  of  it." 

"  Whew !  Great  Jakes ! "  A  long  breath  was  exhaled  all 
round  the  table. 

"  What  are  you,  anyhow  ? "  cried  Jim  Bowles  across  the 
dishes. 

Tembarom  rested  his  elbow  on  the  edge  of  the  table  and 
began  to  check  off  his  points  on  his  fingers. 

39 


90  T.   TEMBAROM 

"I'm  this,  he  said:  "I'm  Temple  Temple  Barholm,  Es 
quire,  of  Temple  Barholm,  Lancashire,  England.  At  the  time 
of  the  flood  my  folks  knocked  up  a  house  just  about  where  the 
ark  landed,  and  I  guess  they  've  held  on  to  it  ever  since.  I 
don't  know  what  business  they  went  into,  but  they  made 
money.  Palford  swears  I  've  got  three  hundred  and  fifty  thou 
sand  dollars  a  year.  I  was  n't  going  to  call  the  man  a  liar ;  but 
I  just  missed  it,  by  jings ! " 

He  was  trying  to  "  bluff  it  out."  Somehow  he  felt  he  had 
to.  He  felt  it  more  than  ever  when  a  momentary  silence  fell 
upon  those  who  sat  about  the  table.  It  fell  when  he  said 
"  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  a  year."  No  one 
could  find  voice  to  make  any  remark  for  a  few  seconds  after 
that. 

"  Are  you  a  lord  —  or  a  duke  ? "  some  one  asked  after 
breath  had  recovered  itself. 

"  No,  I  'm  not,"  he  replied  with  relief.  "  I  just  got  out 
from  under  that;  but  the  Lord  knows  how  I  did  it." 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  first  ?  "  said  Jim  Bowles. 

"  I  've  got  to  go  and  *  take  possession.'  That 's  what  Pal- 
ford  calls  it.  I  've  been  a  lost  heir  for  nearly  two  years,  and 
I  've  got  to  show  myself." 

Hutchinson  had  not  joined  the  clamor  of  greeting,  but  had 
grunted  disapproval  more  than  once.  He  felt  that,  as  an 
Englishman,  he  had  a  certain  dignity  to  maintain.  He  knew 
something  about  big  estates  and  their  owners.  He  was  not 
like  these  common  New  York  chaps,  who  regarded  them  as 
Arabian  Nights  tales  to  make  jokes  about.  He  had  grown  up 
as  a  village  boy  in  proper  awe  of  Temple  Barholm.  They 
were  ignorant  fools,  this  lot.  He  had  no  patience  with  them. 
He  had  left  the  village  and  gone  to  work  in  Manchester  when 
he  was  a  boy  of  twelve,  but  as  long  as  he  had  remained  in  his 
mother's  cottage  it  had  been  only  decent  good  manners  for  him 
to  touch  his  forehead  respectfully  when  a  Temple  Barholm,  or  a 
Temple  Barholm  guest  or  carriage  or  pony  phaeton,  passed 
him  by.  And  this  chap  was  Mr.  Temple  Temple  Barholm  him 
self !  Lord  save  us! 

Little  Ann  said  nothing  at  all;  but,  then,  she  seldom  said 


T.   TEMBAEOM  91 

anything  during  meal-times.  When  the  rest  of  the  boarders 
laughed,  she  ate  her  dinner  and  smiled.  Several  times,  de 
spite  her  caution,  Tembarom  caught  her  eye,  and  somehow  held 
it  a  second  with  his.  She  smiled  at  him  when  this  happened; 
but  there  was  something  restless  and  eager  in  his  look  which 
made  her  wish  to  evade  it.  She  knew  what  he  felt,  and  she 
knew  why  he  kept  up  his  jokes  and  never  once  spoke  seriously. 
She  knew  he  was  not  comfortable,  and  did  not  enjoy  talking 
about  hundreds  of  thousands  a  year  to  people  who  worked  hard 
for  ten  or  twenty  "per."  To-morrow  morning  was  very  near, 
she  kept  thinking.  To-morrow  night  she  would  be  lying  in  her 
berth  in  the  steerage,  or  more  probably  taking  care  of  her  father, 
who  would  be  very  uncomfortable. 

"What  will  Galton  do?"  Mr.  Striper  asked. 

"  I  don't  know,"  Tembarom  answered,  and  he  looked  troubled. 
Three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  a  year  might  not  be 
able  to  give  aid  to  a  wounded  society  page. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  your  Freak?"  called  out 
Julius  Steinberger. 

Tembarom  actually  started.  As  things  had  surged  over  him, 
he  had  had  too  much  to  think  over.  He  had  not  had  time 
to  give  to  his  strange  responsibility;  it  had  become  one  never 
theless. 

"Are  you  going  to  leave  him  behind  when  you  go  to  Eng 
land?" 

He  leaned  forward  and  put  his  chin  on  his  hand. 

"Why,  say,"  he  said,  as  though  he  were  thinking  it  out, 
"he's  spoken  about  England  two  or  three  times.  He's  said 
he  must  go  there.  By  jings !  I  '11  take  him  with  me,  and  see 
what  '11  happen." 

When  Little  Ann  got  up  to  leave  the  room  he  followed  her 
and  her  father  into  the  hall. 

"  May  I  come  up  and  talk  it  over  with  you  ?  "  he  appealed. 
"  I  've  got  to  talk  to  some  one  who  knows  something  about  it. 
I  shall  go  dotty  if  I  don't.  It 's  too  much  like  a  dream." 

"  Come  on  up  when  you  're  ready,"  answered  Hutchinson. 
"  Ann  and  me  can  give  you  a  tip  or  two." 

"  I  'm  going  to  be  putting  the  last  things  in  the  trunks,"  said 


92  T.    TEMBAEOM 

Ann,  "but  I  dare  say  you  won't  mind  that.     The  express '11 
be  here  by  eight  in  the  morning." 
"  0  Lord !  "  groaned  Tembarom. 

When  he  went  up  to  the  fourth  floor  a  little  later,  Hutchin- 
son  had  fallen  into  a  doze  in  his  chair  over  his  newspaper, 
and  Ann  was  kneeling  by  a  trunk  in  the  hall,  folding  small 
articles  tightly,  and  fitting  them  into  corners.  To  Tembarom 
she  looked  even  more  than  usual  like  a  slight  child  thing  one 
could  snatch  up  in  one's  arms  and  carry  about  or  set  on  one's 
knee  without  feeling  her  weight  at  all.  An  inferior  gas-jet 
on  the  wall  just  above  her  was  doing  its  best  with  the  lot  of 
soft,  red  hair,  which  would  have  been  an  untidy  bundle  if  it 
had  not  been  hers. 

Tembarom  sat  down  on  the  trunk  next  to  her. 

"  0  Little  Ann ! "  he  broke  out  under  his  breath,  lest  the 
sound  of  his  voice  might  check  Hutchinson's  steady  snoring. 
"0  Little  Ann!" 

Ann  leaned  back,  sitting  upon  her  small  heels,  and  looked  up 
at  him. 

"You're  all  upset,  and  it's  not  to  be  wondered  at,  Mr. 
Temple  Barholm,"  she  said. 

"  Upset !  You  're  going  away  to-morrow  morning !  And, 
for  the  Lord's  sake,  don't  call  me  that ! "  he  protested. 

"You're  going  away  yourself  next  Wednesday.  And  you 
are  Mr.  Temple  Barholm.  You  '11  never  be  called  anything  else 
in  England. 

"  How  am  I  going  to  stand  it  ?  "  he  protested  again.  "  How 
could  a  fellow  like  me  stand  it!  To  be  yanked  out  of  good 
old  New  York,  and  set  down  in  a  place  like  a  museum,  with 
Central  Park  round  it,  and  called  Mr.  Temple  Temple  Bar- 
holm  instead  of  just  '  Tern '  or  '  T.  T.' !  It 's  not  natural." 

"What  you  must  do,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,  is  to  keep  your 
head  clear,  that 's  all,"  she  replied  maturely. 

"  Lord !  if  I  'd  got  a  head  like  yours !  " 

She  seemed  to  take  him  in,  with  a  benign  appreciativeness, 
in  his  entirety. 

"Well,  you  haven't,"  she  admitted,  though  quite  without 
disparagement,  merely  with  slight  reservation.  "  But  you  've 


T.    TEMBAKOM  93 

got  one  like  jrour  own.  And  it's  a  good  head  —  when  you 
try  to  think  steady.  Yours  is  a  man's  head,  and  mine  's  only 
a  woman's." 

"  It 's  Little  Ann  Hutchinson's,  by  gee ! "  said  Tembarom, 
with  feeling. 

"  Listen  here,  Mr.  Tern  —  Temple  Barholm,"  she  went  on,  as 
nearly  disturbed  as  he  had  ever  seen  her  outwardly.  "  It 's  a 
wonderful  thing  that's  happened  to  you.  It's  like  a  novel. 
That  splendid  place,  that  splendid  name!  It  seems  so  queer 
to  think  I  should  ever  have  talked  to  a  Mr.  Temple  Barholm 
as  I  've  talked  to  you." 

He  leaned  forward  a  little  as  though  something  drew  him. 

"  But " —  there  was  unsteady  appeal  in  his  voice  — "  you  have 
liked  me,  have  n't  you,  Little  Ann  ?  " 

Her  own  voice  seemed  to  drop  into  an  extra  quietness  that 
made  it  remote.  She  looked  down  at  her  hands  on  her  lap. 

"Yes,  I  have  liked  you.  I  have  told  Father  I  liked  you," 
she  answered. 

He  got  up,  and  made  an  impetuous  rush  at  his  goal. 

"  Then  —  say,  I  'm  going  in  there  to  wake  up  Mr.  Hutchin- 
son  and  ask  him  not  to  sail  to-morrow  morning." 

"You'd  better  not  wake  him  up,"  she  answered,  smiling; 
but  he  saw  that  her  face  changed  and  flushed.  "  It 's  not  a 
good  time  to  ask  Father  anything  when  he's  just  been  waked 
up.  And  we  have  to  go.  The  express  is  coming  at  eight." 

"  Send  it  away  again ;  tell  'em  you  're  not  going.  Tell  'em 
any  old  thing.  Little  Ann,  what 's  the  matter  with  you  ? 
Something 's  the  matter.  Have  I  made  a  break  ?  " 

He  had  felt  the  remoteness  in  her  even  before  he  had  heard 
it  in  her  dropped  voice.  It  had  been  vaguely  there  even  when 
he  sat  down  on  the  trunk.  Actually  there  was  a  touch  of 
reserve  about  her,  as  though  she  was  keeping  her  little  place 
with  the  self-respecting  propriety  of  a  girl  speaking  to  a  man 
not  of  her  own  world. 

"  I  dare  say  I  've  done  some  fool  thing  without  knowing  it. 
I  don't  know  where  I  'm  at,  anyhow,"  he  said  woefully. 

"Don't  look  at  me  like  that,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,"  she 
said  — "  as  if  I  was  unkind.  I  —  I  'm  not." 


94  T.   TEMBAEOM 

"  But  you  're  different,"  he  implored.  "  I  saw  it  the  minute 
I  came  up.  I  ran  up-stair8  just  crazy  to  talk  to  you, — yes,  crazy 
to  talk  to  you  —  and  you  —  well,  you  were  different.  Why  are 
you,  if  you  're  not  mad  ?  " 

Then  she  rose  and  stood  holding  one  of  her  neatly  rolled 
packages  in  her  hand.  Her  eyes  were  soft  and  clear,  and  ap 
pealed  maternally  to  his  reason. 

"Because  everything's  different.  You  just  think  a  bit," 
she  answered. 

He  stared  at  her  a  few  seconds,  and  then  understanding  of 
her  dawned  upon  him.  He  made  a  human  young  dash  at  her, 
and  caught  her  arm. 

"What!"  he  cried  out.  "You  mean  this  Temple  Barholm 
song  and  dance  makes  things  different?  Not  on  your  life! 
You  're  not  the  girl  to  work  that  on  me,  as  if  it  was  my  fault. 
You've  got  to  hear  me  speak  my  piece.  Ann  —  you've  just 
got  to!" 

He  had  hegun  to  tremble  a  little,  and  she  herself  was  not 
steady;  but  she  put  a  hand  on  his  arm. 

"Don't  say  anything  you've  not  had  time  to  think  about," 
she  said. 

"  I  've  been  thinking  of  pretty  near  nothing  else  ever  since 
I  came  here.  Just  as  soon  as  I  looked  at  you  across  the  table 
that  first  day  I  saw  my  finish,  and  every  day  made  me  surer. 
I  'd  never  had  any  comfort  or  taking  care  of, —  I  did  n't  know 
the  first  thing  about  it, —  and  it  seemed  as  if  all  there  was 
of  it  in  the  world  was  just  in  you." 

"  Did  you  think  that  ?  "  she  asked  f alteringly. 
"Did  I?  That's  how  you  looked  to  me,  and  it's  how  you 
look  now.  The  way  you  go  about  taking  care  of  everybody  and 
just  handing  out  solid  little  chunks  of  good  sense  to  every 
darned  fool  that  needs  them,  why — "  There  was  a  break  in 
his  voice  —  "  why,  it  just  knocked  me  out  the  first  round."  He 
held  her  a  little  away  from  him,  so  that  he  could  yearn  over 
her,  though  he  did  not  know  he  was  yearning.  "  See,  I  'd 
sworn  I  'd  never  ask  a  girl  to  marry  me  until  I  could  keep 
her.  Well,  you  know  how  it  was,  Ann.  I  couldn't  have  kept 
a  goat,  and  I  was  n't  such  a  fool  that  I  did  n't  know  it.  I  've 


T.   TEMBAROM  95 

been  pretty  sick  when  I  thought  how  it  was;  but  I  never 
worried  you,  did  I  ?  " 

"  No,  you  did  n't." 

"  I  just  got  busy.  I  worked  like  —  well,  I  got  busier  than 
I  ever  was  in  my  life.  When  I  got  the  page  sure,  I  let  myself 
go  a  bit,  sort  of  hoping.  And  then  this  Temple  Barholm  thing 
hits  me." 

"  That 's  the  thing  you  've  got  to  think  of  now,"  said  Little 
Ann.  "  I  'm  going  to  talk  sensible  to  you." 

"  Don't,  Ann !     Good  Lord !  don't !" 

"  I  must"  She  put  her  last  tight  roll  into  the  trunk  and 
tried  to  shut  the  lid.  "  Please  lock  this  for  me." 

He  locked  it,  and  then  she  seated  herself  on  the  top  of  it, 
though  it  was  rather  high  for  her,  and  her  small  feet  dangled. 
Her  eyes  looked  large  and  moist  like  a  baby's,  and  she  took 
out  a  handkerchief  and  lightly  touched  them. 

"You've  made  me  want  to  cry  a  bit,"  she  said,  "but  I'm 
not  going  to." 

"  Are  you  going  to  tell  me  you  don't  want  me  ?  "  he  asked, 
with  anxious  eyes. 

"  No,  I  'm  not." 

"  God  bless  you ! "  He  was  going  to  make  a  dash  at  her 
again,  but"  pulled  himself  up  because  he  must.  "  No,  by 
jings !  "  he  said.  "  I  'm  not  going  to  till  you  let  me." 

"  You  see,  it 's  true  your  head 's  not  like  mine,"  she  said 
reasonably.  "  Men's  heads  are  mostly  not  like  women's.  They  're 
men,  of  course,  and  they  're  superior  to  women,  but  they  're 
what  I  'd  call  more  fluttery-like.  Women  must  remind  them 
of  things." 

"  What  —  what  kind  of  things  ?  " 

"  This  kind.  You  see,  Grandmother  lives  near  Temple  Bar- 
holm,  and  I  know  what  it 's  like,  and  you  don't.  And  I  've 
seen  what  seventy  thousand  pounds  a  year  means,  and  you 
have  n't.  And  you  've  got  to  go  and  find  out  for  yourself." 

"  What 's  the  matter  with  you  coming  along  to  help  me  ?  " 

"  I  should  n't  help  you ;  that 's  it.  I  should  hold  you  back. 
I  'm  nothing  but  Ann  Hutchinson,  and  I  talk  Manchester  — 
and  I  drop  my  h's." 


96  T.    TEMBAEOM 

"I  love  to  hear  you  drop  your  little  h's  all  over  the  place," 
he  burst  forth  impetuously.  "  I  love  it." 

She  shook  her  head. 

"  The  girls  that  go  to  garden-parties  at  Temple  Barholm 
look  like  those  in  the  '  Ladies'  Pictorial/  and  they  've  got  names 
and  titles  same  as  those  in  novels." 

He  answered  her  in  genuine  anguish.  He  had  never  made 
any  mistake  about  her  character,  and  she  was  beginning  to 
make  him  feel  afraid  of  her  in  the  midst  of  his  adoration. 

"  What  do  I  want  with  a  girl  out  of  a  magazine  ? "  he 
cried.  "  Where  should  I  hang  her  up  ?  " 

She  was  not  unfeeling,  but  unshaken  and  she  went  on : 

"  I  should  look  like  a  housemaid  among  them.  How  would 
you  feel  with  a  wife  of  that  sort,  when  the  other  sort  was 
about?'' 

"  I  should  feel  like  a  king,  that 's  what  I  should  feel  like," 
he 'replied  indignantly. 

"  I  should  n't  feel  like  a  queen.     I  should  feel  miserable" 

She  sat  with  her  little  feet  dangling,  and  her  hands  folded 
in  her  lap.  Her  infantile  blue  eyes  held  him  as  the  Ancient 
Mariner  had  been  held.  He  could  not  get  away  from  the  clear 
directness  of  them.  He  did  not  want  to  exactly,  but  she 
frightened  him  more  and  more. 

"I  should  be  ashamed,"  she  proceeded.  "I  should  feel  as 
if  I  had  taken  an  advantage.  What  you've  got  to  do  is  to 
find  out  something  no  one  else  can  find  out  for  you,  Mr. 
Temple  Barholm." 

"  How  can  I  find  it  out  without  you  ?  It  was  you  who  put 
me  on  to  the  wedding-cake ;  you  can  put  me  on  to  other  things." 

"  Because  I  've  lived  in  the  place,"  she  answered  unswerv 
ingly.  "I  know  how  funny  it  is  for  any  one  to  think  of  me 
being  Mrs.  Temple  Barholm.  You  don't." 

"You  bet  I  don't,"  he  answered;  "but  I'll  tell  you  what  I 
do  know,  and  that's  how  funny  it  is  that  I  should  be  Mr. 
Temple  Barholm.  I've  got  on  to  that  all  right,  all  right. 
Have  you  ?  " 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  reflection  that  said  much.  She  took 
him  in  with  a  judicial  summing  up  of  which  it  must  be  owned 


T.   TEMBAROM  97 

an  added  respect  was  part.  She  had  always  believed  he  had 
more  sense  than  most  young  men,  and  now  she  knew  it. 

"  When  a  person 's  clever  enough  to  see  things  for  him 
self,  he  's  generally  clever  enough  to  manage  them,"  she  replied. 

He  knelt  down  beside  the  trunk  and  took  both  her  hands 
in  his.  He  held  them  fast  and  rather  hard. 

"  Are  you  throwing  me  down  for  good,  Little  Ann  ? "  he 
said.  "  If  you  are,  I  can't  stand  it,  I  won't  stand  it." 

"  If  you  care  about  me  like  that,  you  '11  do  what  I  tell  you," 
she  interrupted,  and  she  slipped  down  from  the  top  of  her 
trunk.  "  I  know  what  Mother  would  say.  She  'd  say,  '  Ann, 
you  give  that  young  man  a  chance.'  And  I  'm  going  to  give 
you  one.  I  've  said  all  I  'm  going  to,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm." 

He  took  both  her  elbows  and  looked  at  her  closely,  feeling  a 
somewhat  awed  conviction. 

"I  —  believe  —  you  have,"  he  said. 

And  here  the  sound  of  Mr.  Hutchinson's  loud  and  stertorous 
breathing  ceased,  and  he  waked  up,  and  came  to  the  door  to 
find  out  what  Ann  was  doing. 

"  What  are  you  two  talking  about  ? "  he  asked.  "  People 
think  when  they  whisper  it 's  not  going  to  disturb  anybody, 
but  it 's  worse  than  shouting  in  a  man's  ear." 

Tembarom  walked  into  the  room. 

"  I  ?ve  been  asking  Little  Ann  to  marry  me,"  he  announced, 
"and  she  won't." 

He  sat  down  in  a  chair  helplessly,  and  let  his  head  fall  into 
his  hands. 

"  Eh ! "  exclaimed  Hutchinson.  He  turned  and  looked  at 
Ann  disturbedly.  "I  thought  a  bit  ago  tha  didn't  deny  but 
what  tha  'd  took  to  him  ?  " 

"  I  did  n't,  Father,"  she  answered.  "  I  don't  change  my 
mind  that  quick.  I  —  would  have  been  willing  to  say  *  Yes  ' 
when  you  wouldn't  have  been  willing  to  let  me.  I  didn't 
know  he  was  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  then." 

Hutchinson  rubbed  the  back  of  his  head,  reddening  and 
rather  bristling. 

"Dost  tha  think  th'  Temple  Barholms  would  look  down  on 
thee?" 


98  T.    TEMBAKOM 

"  I  should  look  down  on  myself  if  I  took  him  up  at  his  first 
words,  when  he 's  all  upset  with  excitement,  and  has  n't  had  time 
to  find  out  what  things  mean.  I  'm  —  well,  I  'm  too  fond  of 
him,  Father." 

Hutchinson  gave  her  a  long,  steady  look. 

"  You  are  ?  "  he  said. 

"Yes,  I  am." 

Tembarom  lifted  his  head,  and  looked  at  her,  too. 

"  Are  you  ?  "  he  asked. 

She  put  her  hands  behind  her  back,  and  returned  his  look 
with  the  calm  of  ages. 

"  I  'm  not  going  to  argue  about  it,"  she  answered.  "  Argu 
ing 's  silly." 

His  involuntary  rising  and  standing  before  her  was  a  sort 
of  unconscious  tribute  of  respect. 

"  I  know  that,"  he  owned.  "  I  know  you.  That 's  why  I 
take  it  like  this.  But  I  want  you  to  tell  me  one  thing.  If 
this  had  n't  happened,  if  I  'd  only  had  twenty  dollars  a  week, 
would  you  have  taken  me  ?  " 

"  If  you  'd  had  fifteen,  and  Father  could  have  spared  me, 
I  'd  have  taken  you.  Fifteen  dollars  a  week  is  three  pounds 
two  and  sixpence,  and  I  've  known  curates'  wives  that  had  to 
bring  up  families  on  less.  It  would  n't  go  as  far  in  New 
York  as  it  would  in  the  country  in  England,  but  we  could 
have  made  it  do  —  until  you  got  more.  I  know  you,  too,  Mr. 
Temple  Barholm." 

He  turned  to  her  father,  and  saw  in  his  florid  countenance 
that  which  spurred  him  to  bold  disclosure. 

"  Say,"  he  put  it  to  him,  as  man  to  man,  "  she  stands  there 
and  says  a  thing  like  that,  and  she  expects  a  fellow  not  to 
jerk  her  into  his  arms  and  squeeze  the  life  oiut  of  her !  I  dare  n't 
do  it,  and  I  'm  not  going  to  try ;  but  —  well,  you  said  her 
mother  was  like  her,  and  I  guess  you  know  what  I  'm  up 
against." 

Hutchinson's  grunting  chuckle  contained  implications  of 
exultant  tenderness  and  gratified  paternal  pride. 

"  She 's  th'  very  spit  and  image  of  her  mother,"  he  said, 
"and  she  had  th'  sense  of  ten  women  rolled  into  one,  and  th' 


T.    TEMBAEOM  99 

love  of  twenty.  You  let  her  be,  and  you  're  as  safe  as  th'  Rock 
of  Ages." 

"  Do  you  think  I  don't  know  that  ? "  answered  Tembarom, 
his  eyes  shining  almost  to  moisture.  "But  what  hits  me,  by 
thunder !  is  that  I  've  lost  the  chance  of  seeing  her  work  out 
that  fifteen-dollar-a-week  proposition,  and  it  drives  me  crazy." 

"  I  should  have  downright  liked  to  try  it,"  said  Little  Ann, 
with  speculative  reflection,  and  while  she  knitted  her  brows  in 
lovely  consideration  of  the  attractive  problem,  several  pre 
viously  unknown  dimples  declared  themselves  about  her  mouth. 

"Ann,"  Tembarom  ventured,  "if  I  go  to  Temple  Barholm 
and  try  it  a  year  and  learn  all  about  it  — " 

"  It  would  take  more  than  a  year,"  said  Ann. 

"  Don't  make  it  two,"  Tembarom  pleaded.  "  I  '11  sit  up  at 
night  with  wet  towels  round  my  head  to  learn ;  I  '11  spend 
fourteen  hours  a  day  with  girls  that  look  like  the  pictures  in 
the  '  Ladies'  Pictorial,'  or  whatever  it  is  in  England ;  I  '11  give 
them  every  chance  in  life,  if  you  '11  let  me  off  afterward.  There 
must  be  another  lost  heir  somewhere;  let's  dig  him  up 
and  then  come  back  to  little  old  New  York  and  be  happy. 
Gee !  Ann," —  letting  himself  go  and  drawing  nearer  to  her, — 
"  how  happy  we  could  be  in  one  of  those  little  flats  in  Harlem !  " 

She  was  a  warm  little  human  thing,  and  a  tender  one,  and 
when  he  came  close  to  her,  glowing  with  tempestuous  boyish 
eagerness,  her  eyes  grew  bluer  because  they  were  suddenly  wet, 
and  she  was  obliged  to  move  softly  back. 

"  Yes,"  she  said ;  "  I  know  those  little  flats.  Any  one  could  — " 
She  stopped  herself,  because  she  had  been  going  to  reveal 
what  a  home  a  woman  could  make  in  rooms  like  the  compart 
ments  in  a  workbox.  She  knew  and  saw  it  all.  She  drew 
back  a  little  again,  but  she  put  out  a  hand  and  laid  it  on  his 
sleeve. 

"  When  you  've  had  quite  time  enough  to  find  out,  and 
know  what  the  other  thing  means,  I  '11  do  whatever  you  want 
me  to  do,"  she  said.  "  It  won't  matter  what  it  is.  I  '11  do  it." 

"  She  means  that,"  Hutchinson  mumbled  unsteadily,  turning 
aside.  "  Same  as  her  mother  would  have  meant  it.  And 
she  means  it  in  more  ways  than  one." 


100  T.    TEMBAROM 

And  so  she  did.  The  promise  included  quite  firmly  the 
possibility  of  not  unnatural  changes  in  himself  such  as  young 
ardor  could  not  foresee,  even  the  possibility  of  his  new  life 
withdrawing  him  entirely  from  the  plane  on  which  rapture 
could  materialize  on  twenty  dollars  a  week  in  a  flat  in  Har 
lem. 


CHAPTEE  IX 


TYPE  as  exotic  as  Tembarom's  was  to  his 
solicitor  naturally  suggested  problems. 
Mr.  Palford  found  his  charge  baffling  be 
cause,  according  to  ordinary  rules,  a  young 
man  so  rudimentary  should  have  presented 
no  problems  not  perfectly  easy  to  explain. 
It  was  herein  that  he  was  exotic.  Mr. 
Palford,  who  was  not  given  to  subtle  an 
alysis  of  differences  in  character  and  tem 
perament,  argued  privately  that  an  English 

youth  who  had  been  brought  up  in  the  streets  would  have  been 
one  of  two  or  three  things.  He  would  have  been  secretly  ter 
rified  and  resentful,  roughly  awkward  and  resentful,  or  boast 
fully  delighted  and  given  to  a  common  youth's  excitedly  com 
mon  swagger  at  finding  himself  suddenly  a  "  swell/' 

This  special  kind  of  youth  would  most  assuredly  have  con 
stantly  thought  of  himself  as  a  "  swell "  and  would  have  lost 
his  head  altogether,  possibly  with  results  in  the  matter  of  con 
duct  in  public  which  would  have  been  either  maddening  or 
crushing  to  the  spirit  of  a  well-bred,  mature-minded  legal 
gentleman  temporarily  thrust  into  the  position  of  bear-leader. 
But  Tembarom  was  none  of  these  things.  If  he  was  terrified, 
he  did  not  reveal  his  anguish.  He  was  without  doubt  not  re 
sentful,  but  on  the  contrary  interested  and  curious,  though  he 
could  not  be  said  to  bear  himself  as  one  elated.  He  indulged 
in  no  frolics  or  extravagances.  He  saw  the  Hutchinsons  off 
on  their  steamer,  and  supplied  them  with  fruit  and  flowers 
and  books  with  respectful  moderation.  He  did  not  conduct 
himself  as  a  benefactor  bestowing  unknown  luxuries,  but  as  a 
young  man  on  whom  unexpected  luck  had  bestowed  decent  op 
portunities  to  express  his  friendship.  In  fact,  Palford's  taste 

101 


102  T.    TEMBAROM 

approved  of  his  attitude.  He  was  evidently  much  under  the 
spell  of  the  slight  girl  with  the  Manchester  accent  and  sober 
blue  eyes,  but  she  was  neither  flighty  nor  meretricious,  and 
would  have  sense  enough  to  give  no  trouble  even  when  he 
naturally  forgot  her  in  the  revelations  of  his  new  life.  Her 
father  also  was  plainly  a  respectable  working-man,  with  a  blunt 
Lancashire  pride  which  would  keep  him  from  intruding. 

"You  can't  butt  in  and  get  fresh  with  a  man  like  that," 
Tembarom  said.  "  Money  would  n't  help  you.  He  's  too  in 
dependent." 

After  the  steamer  had  sailed  away  it  was  observable  to  his 
solicitor  that  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  was  apparently  occupied 
every  hour.  He  did  not  explain  why  he  seemed  to  rush  from 
one  part  of  New  York  to  another  and  why  he  seemed  to  be  seek 
ing  interviews  with  persons  it  was  plainly  difficult  to  get  at. 
He  was  evidently  working  hard  to  accomplish  something  or 
other  before  he  left  the  United  States,  perhaps.  He  asked  some 
astutely  practical  business  questions;  his  intention  seeming  to 
be  to  gain  a  definite  knowledge  of  what  his  future  resources 
would  be  and  of  his  freedom  to  use  them  as  he  chose. 

Once  or  twice  Mr.  Palford  was  rather  alarmed  by  the  tendency 
of  his  questions.  Had  he  actually  some  prodigious  American 
scheme  in  view?  He  seemed  too  young  and  inexperienced  in 
the  handling  of  large  sums  for  such  a  possibility.  But  youth 
and  inexperience  and  suddenly  inherited  wealth  not  infrequently 
led  to  rash  adventures.  Something  which  Palford  called  "  very 
handsome  "  was  done  for  Mrs.  Bowse  and  the  boarding-house. 
Mrs.  Bowse  was  evidently  not  proud  enough  to  resent  being 
made  secure  for  a  few  years'  rent.  The  extraordinary  page  was 
provided  for  after  a  large  amount  of  effort  and  expenditure  of 
energy. 

"I  couldn't  leave  Galton  high  and  dry,"  Tembarom  ex 
plained  when  he  came  in  after  rushing  about.  "  I  think  I 
know  a  man  he  might  try,  but  I  've  got  to  find  him  and  put 
him  on  to  things.  Good  Lord!  nobody  rushed  about  to  find 
me  and  offer  me  the  job.  I  hope  this  fellow  wants  it  as  bad 
as  I  did.  He  '11  be  up  in  the  air."  He  discovered  the  where 
abouts  of  the  young  man  in  question,  and  finding  him,  as  the 


T.    TEMBAROM  103 

youngster  almost  tearfully  declared,  "  about  down  and  out," 
his  proposition  was  met  with  the  gratitude  the  relief  from  a 
prospect  of  something  extremely  like  starvation  would  mentally 
produce.  Tembarom  took  him  to  Galton  after  having  talked 
him  over  in  detail. 

"  He  's  had  an  education,  and  you  know  how  much  I  'd  had 
when  I  butted  into  the  page,"  he  said.  "  No  one  but  you  would 
have  let  me  try  it.  You  did  it  only  because  you  saw  —  you 
saw  — " 

"Yes,  I  saw/'  answered  Galton,  who  knew  exactly  what  he 
had  seen  and  who  found  his  up-town  social  representative  and 
his  new  situation  as  interesting  as  amusing  and  just  touched 
with  the  pathetic  element.  Galton  was  a  traveled  man  and  knew 
England  and  several  other  countries  well. 

"You  saw  that  a  fellow  wanted  the  job  as  much  as  I  did 
would  be  likely  to  put  up  a  good  fight  to  hold  it  down.  I  was 
scared  out  of  my  life  when  I  started  out  that  morning  of  the 
blizzard,  but  I  could  n't  afford  to  be  scared.  I  guess  soldiers 
who  are  scared  fight  like  that  when  they  see  bayonets  coming 
at  them.  You  have  to." 

"  I  wonder  how  often  a  man  finds  out  that  he  does  pretty 
big  things  when  bayonets  are  coming  at  him,"  answered  Galton, 
who  was  actually  neglecting  his  work  for  a  few  minutes  so  that 
he  might  look  at  and  talk  to  him,  this  New  York  descendant 
of  Norman  lords  and  Saxon  kings. 

"Joe  Bennett  had  been  trying  to  live  off  free-lunch  counters 
for  a  week  when  I  found  him,"  Tembarom  explained.  "You 
don't  know  what  that  is.  He  '11  go  at  the  page  all  right.  I  'm 
going  to  take  him  up-town  and  introduce  him  to  my  friends 
there  and  get  them  to  boost  him  along." 

"You  made  friends,"  said  Galton.     "I  knew  you  would." 

"  Some  of  the  best  ever.  Good-natured  and  open-handed. 
Well,  you  bet !  Only  trouble  was  they  wanted  you  to  eat  and 
drink  everything  in  sight,  and  they  did  n't  quite  like  it  when 
jou  could  n't  get  outside  all  the  champagne  they  'd  offer  you." 

He  broke  into  a  big,  pleased  laugh. 

"  When  I  went  in  and  told  Munsberg  he  pretty  near  threw  a 
fit.  Of  course  he  thought  I  was  kidding.  But  when  I  made 


104  T.   TEMBAROM 

him  believe  it,  he  was  as  glad  as  if  he'd  had  luck  himself. 
It  was  just  fine  the  way  people  took  it.  Tell  you  what,  it  takes 
good  luck,  or  bad  luck,  to  show  you  how  good-natured  a  lot  of 
folks  are.  They  '11  treat  Bennett  and  the  page  all  right ;  you  '11 
see." 

"  They  '11  miss  you,"  said  Galton. 

"  I  shall  miss  them,"  Tembarom  answered  in  a  voice  with  a 
rather  depressed  drop  in  it. 

"  I  shall  miss  you,"  said  Galton. 

Tembarom's  face  reddened  a  little. 

"  I  guess  it  'd  seem  rather  fresh  for  me  to  tell  you  how  I 
shall  miss  you,"  he  said.  "  I  said  that  first  day  that  I  did  n't 
know  how  to  tell  you  how  I  —  well,  how  I  felt  about  you  giving 
a  mutt  like  me  that  big  chance.  You  never  thought  I  did  n't 
know  how  little  I  did  know,  did  you  ? "  he  inquired  almost 
anxiously. 

"  That  was  it  —  that  you  did  know  and  that  you  had  the 
backbone  and  the  good  spirits  to  go  in  and  win,"  Galton  re 
plied.  "  I  'm  a  tired  man,  and  good  spirits  and  good  temper 
seem  to  me  about  the  biggest  assets  a  man  can  bring  into  a 
thing.  I  should  n't  have  dared  do  it  when  I  was  your  age.  You 
deserved  the  Victoria  Cross,"  he  added,  chuckling. 

"  What 's  the  Victoria  Cross  ?  "  asked  Tembarom. 

"  You  '11  find  out  when  you  go  to  England." 

"  Well,  I  'm  not  supposing  that  you  don 't  know  about  how 
many  billion  things  I  '11  have  to  find  out  when  I  go  to  Eng 
land." 

"  There  will  be  several  thousand,"  replied  Galton  moderately ; 
"but  you'll  learn  about  them  as  you  go  on." 

"  Say,"  said  Tembarom,  reflectively,  "  does  n't  it  seem  queer 
to  think  of  a  fellow  having  to  keep  up  his  spirits  because  he  's 
fallen  into  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  a  year?  You 
would  n't  think  he  'd  have  to,  would  you  ?  " 

"  But  you  find  he  has  ?  "  queried  Galton,  interestedly. 

Tembarom's  lifted  eyes  were  so  honest  that  they  were  touch 
ing. 

"  I  don't  know  where  I  'm  at,"  he  said.  "  I  'm  going  to 
wake  up  in  a  new  place  —  like  people  that  die.  If  you  knew 


T.    TEMBAROM  105 

what  it  was  like,  you  would  n't  mind  it  so  much ;  but  you 
don't  know  a  blamed  thing.  It 's  not  having  seen  a  sample 
that  rattles  you." 

"  You  're  fond  of  New  York?  " 

"  Good  Lord !  it 's  all  the  place  I  know  on  earth,  and  it 's 
just  about  good  enough  for  me,  by  gee!  It's  kept  me  alive 
when  it  might  have  starved  me  to  death.  My !  I  've  had  good 
times  here,"  he  added,  flushing  with  emotion.  "  Good  times  — 
when  I  had  n't  a  whole  meal  a  day ! " 

"  You  'd  have  good  times  anywhere,"  commented  Galton,  also 
with  feeling.  "  You  carry  them  over  your  shoulder,  and  you 
share  them  with  a  lot  of  other  people." 

He  certainly  shared  some  with  Joe  Bennett,  whom  he  took 
up-town  and  introduced  right  and  left  to  his  friendly  patrons, 
who,  excited  by  the  atmosphere  of  adventure  and  prosperity,  re 
ceived  him  with  open  arms.  To  have  been  the  choice  of  T. 
Tembarom  as  a  mere  representative  of  the  Earth  would 
have  been  a  great  thing  for  Bennett,  but  to  be  the  choice  of 
the  hero  of  a  romance  of  wildest  opulence  was  a  tremendous 
send-off.  He  was  accepted  at  once,  and  when  Tembarom  actu 
ally  "  stood  for "  a  big  farewell  supper  of  his  own  in  "  The 
Hall,"  and  nearly  had  his  hand  shaken  off  by  congratulating 
acquaintances,  the  fact  that  he  kept  the  new  aspirant  by  his  side, 
so  that  the  waves  of  high  popularity  flowed  over  him  until  he 
sometimes  lost  his  joyful  breath,  established  him  as  a  sort  of 
hero  himself. 

Mr.  Palford  did  not  know  of  this  festivity,  as  he  also  found 
he  was  not  told  of  several  other  things.  This  he  counted  as  a 
feature  of  his  client's  exoticism.  His  extraordinary  lack  of  con 
cealment  of  things  vanity  forbids  many  from  confessing  com 
bined  itself  with  a  quite  cheerful  power  to  keep  his  own  counsel 
when  he  was,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  so  inclined. 

"  He  can  keep  his  mouth  shut,  that  chap,"  Hutchinson  had 
said  once,  and  Mr.  Palford  remembered  it.  "  Most  of  us  can't. 
I  've  got  a  notion  I  can ;  but  I  don't  many  's  the  time  when  I 
should.  There  's  a  lot  more  in  him  than  you  'd  think  for.  He  's 
naught  but  a  lad,  but  he  is  na  half  such  a  fool  as  he  looks." 

He  was  neither  hesitant  nor  timid,  Mr.  Palford  observed.     In 


106  T.   TEMBAROM 

an  entirely  unostentatious  way  he  soon  realized  that  his  money 
gave  things  into  his  hands.  He  knew  he  could  do  most  things  he 
chose  to  do,  and  that  the  power  to  do  them  rested  in  these  days 
with  himself  without  the  necessity  of  detailed  explanation  or 
appeal  to  others,  as  in  the  case,  for  instance,  of  this  mysterious 
friend  or  protege  whose  name  was  Strangeways.  Of  the  history 
of  his  acquaintance  with  him  Palford  knew  nothing,  and  that 
he  should  choose  to  burden  himself  with  a  half-witted  invalid 

—  in  these  terms  the  solicitor  described  him  —  was  simply  in- 
explainable.     If  he  had  asked  for  advice  or  by  his  manner  left 
an  opening  for  the  offering  of  it,  he  would  have  been  most 
strongly  counseled  to  take  him  to  a  public  asylum  and  leave 
him  there;  but  advice  on  the  subject  seemed  the  last  thing  he 
desired  or  anticipated,  and  talk  about  his  friend  was  what  he 
seemed  least  likely  to  indulge  in.     He  made  no  secret  of  his  in 
tentions,  but  he  frankly  took  charge  of  them  as  his  own  special 
business,  and  left  the  rest  alone. 

"  Say  nothing  and  saw  wood,"  Palford  had  once  been  a  trifle 
puzzled  by  hearing  him  remark  casually,  and  he  remembered  it 
later,  as  he  remembered  the  comments  of  Joseph  Hutchinson. 
Tembarom  had  explained  himself  to  Little  Ann. 

"You'll  understand,"  he  said.  "It  is  like  this.  I  guess 
I  feel  like  you  do  when  a  dog  or  a  cat  in  big  trouble  just  looks 
at  you  as  if  you  were  all  they  had,  and  they  know  if  you  don't 
stick  by  them  they'll  be  killed,  and  it  just  drives  them  crazy. 
It 's  the  way  they  look  at  you  that  you  can't  stand.  I  believe 
something  would  burst  in  that  fellow's  brain  if  I  left  him. 
When  he  found  out  I  was  going  to  do  it  he  'd  just  let  out  some 
awful  kind  of  a  yell  I  'd  remember  till  I  died.  I  dried  right  up 
almost  as  soon  as  I  spoke  of  him  to  Palford.  He  could  n't  see 
anything  but  that  he  was  crazy  and  ought  to  be  put  in  an 
asylum.  "Well,  he's  not.  There 're  times  when  he  talks  to  me 
almost  sensible;  only  he's  always  so  awful  low  down  in  his 
mind  you  're  afraid  to  let  him  go  on.  And  he  's  a  little  bit 
better  than  he  was.  It  seems  queer  to  get  to  like  a  man  that 's 
sort  of  dotty,  but  I  tell  you,  Ann,  because  you'll  understand 

—  I  've  got  to  sort  of  like  him,  and  want  to  see  if  I  can  work  it 
out  for  him  somehow.     England  seems  to  sort  of  stick  in  his 


T.   TEMBAROM  107 

mind.  If  I  can't  spend  my  money  in  living  the  way  I  want 
to  live, —  buying  jewelry  and  clothes  for  the  girl  I  'd  like  to 
see  dressed  like  a  queen  —  I  'm  going  to  do  this  just  to 
please  myself.  I  'm  going  to  take  him  to  England  and  keep  him 
quiet  and  see  what  '11  happen.  Those  big  doctors  ought  to  know 
about  all  there  is  to  know,  and  I  can  pay  them  any  old  thing 
they  want.  By  jings !  is  n't  it  the  limit  —  to  sit  here  and  say 
that  and  know  it 's  true !  " 

Beyond  the  explaining  of  necessary  detail  to  him  and  piloting 
him  to  England,  Mr.  Palford  did  not  hold  himself  many 
degrees  responsible.  His  theory  of  correct  conduct  assumed  no 
form  of  altruism.  He  had  formulated  it  even  before  he  reached 
middle  age.  One  of  his  fixed  rules  was  to  avoid  the  error 
of  allowing  sympathy  or  sentiment  to  hamper  him  with  any  un 
necessary  burden.  Natural  tendency  of  temperament  had 
placed  no  obstacles  in  the  way  of  his  keeping  this  rule.  To 
burden  himself  with  the  instruction  or  modification  of  this  un 
fortunately  hopeless  young  New  Yorker  would  be  unnecessary. 
Palford's  summing  up  of  him  was  that  he  was  of  a  type  with 
which  nothing  palliative  could  be  done.  There  he  was.  As  un 
avoidable  circumstances  forced  one  to  take  him, —  commonness, 
slanginess,  appalling  ignorance,  and  all, —  one  could  not  leave 
him.  Fortunately,  no  respectable  legal  firm  need  hold  itself 
sponsor  for  a  "  next  of  kin  "  provided  by  fate  and  the  wilds  of 
America. 

The  Temple  Barholm  estate  had  never,  in  Mr.  Palford's  gen 
eration,  been  specially  agreeable  to  deal  with.  The  late  Mr. 
Temple  Temple  Barholm  had  been  a  client  of  eccentric  and 
abominable  temper.  Interviews  with  him  had  been  avoided  as 
much  as  possible.  His  domineering  insolence  of  bearing  had  at 
times  been  on  the  verge  of  precipitating  unheard-of  actions,  be 
cause  it  was  almost  more  than  gentlemanly  legal  flesh  and 
blood  could  bear.  And  now  appeared  this  young  man. 

He  rushed  about  New  York  strenuously  attending  to  business 
concerning  himself  and  his  extraordinary  acquaintances,  and 
on  the  day  of  the  steamer's  sailing  he  presented  himself  at  the 
last  moment  in  an  obviously  just  purchased  suit  of  horribly  cut 
clothes.  At  all  events,  their  cut  was  horrible  in  the  eyes  of  Mr. 


108  T.    TEMBAROM 

Palford,  who  accepted  no  cut  but  that  of  a  "West  End  tailor. 
They  were  badly  made  things  enough,  because  they  were  uncon- 
sidered  garments  that  Tembarom  had  barely  found  time  to 
snatch  from  a  "  ready-made  "  counter  at  the  last  moment.  He 
had  been  too  much  "  rushed  "  by  other  things  to  remember  that 
he  must  have  them  until  almost  too  late  to  get  them  at  all. 
He  bought  them  merely  because  they  were  clothes,  and  warm 
enough  to  make  a  voyage  in.  He  possessed  a  monster  ulster, 
in  which,  to  Mr.  Palford's  mind,  he  looked  like  a  flashy  black 
leg.  He  did  not  know  it  was  flashy.  His  opportunities  for  cul 
tivating  a  refined  taste  in  the  matter  of  wardrobe  had  been 
limited,  and  he  had  wasted  no  time  in  fastidious  consideration 
or  regrets.  Palford  did  him  some  injustice  in  taking  it  for 
granted  that  his  choice  of  costume  was  the  result  of  deliberate 
bad  taste.  It  was  really  not  choice  at  all.  He  neither  liked 
his  clothes  nor  disliked  them.  He  had  been  told  he  needed 
warm  garments,  and  he  had  accepted  the  advice  of  the  first 
salesman  who  took  charge  of  him  when  he  dropped  into  the  big 
department  store  he  was  most  familiar  with  because  it  was  the 
cheapest  in  town.  Even  when  it  was  no  longer  necessary  to 
be  cheap,  it  was  time-saving  and  easy  to  go  into  a  place  one 
knew. 

The  fact  that  he  was  as  he  was,  and  that  they  were  the 
subjects  of  comment  and  objects  of  unabated  interest  through 
out  the  voyage,  that  it  was  proper  that  they  should  be  com 
panions  at  table  and  on  deck,  filled  Mr.  Palford  with  annoyed 
unease. 

Of  course  every  one  on  board  was  familiar  with  the  story  of 
the  discovery  of  the  lost  heir.  The  newspapers  had  reveled  in  it, 
and  had  woven  romances  about  it  which  might  well  have  caused 
the  deceased  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  to  turn  in  his  grave.  After 
the  first  day  Tembarom  had  been  picked  out  from  among  the 
less-exciting  passengers,  and  when  he  walked  the  deck,  books 
were  lowered  into  laps  or  eyes  followed  him  over  their  edges. 
His  steamer-chair  being  placed  in  a  prominent  position  next 
to  that  of  a  pretty,  effusive  Southern  woman,  the  mother  of 
three  daughters  whose  eyes  and  eyelashes  attracted  attention  at 
the  distance  of  a  deck's  length,  he  was  without  undue  delay  pro- 


T.   TEMBAROM  109 

vided  with  acquaintances  who  were  prepared  to  fill  his  every 
moment  with  entertainment. 

"  The  three  Gazelles/'  as  their  mother  playfully  confided  to 
Tembarom  her  daughters  were  called  in  Charleston,  were  de 
structively  lovely.  They  were  swaying  reeds  of  grace,  and  be 
ing  in  radiant  spirits  at  the  prospect  of  "  going  to  Europe," 
were  companions  to  lure  a  man  to  any  desperate  lengths. 
They  laughed  incessantly,  as  though  they  were  chimes  of  silver 
bells;  they  had  magnolia-petal  skins  which  neither  wind  nor 
sun  blemished;  they  had  nice  young  manners,  and  soft  moods 
in  which  their  gazelle  eyes  melted  and  glowed  and  their  long 
lashes  drooped.  They  could  dance,  they  played  on  guitars,  and 
they  sang.  They  were  as  adorable  as  they  were  lovely  and 

gay- 

"  If  a  fellow  was  going  to  fall  in  love,"  Tembarom  said  to 
Palford,  "  there  'd  be  no  way  out  of  this  for  him  unless  he 
climbed  the  rigging  and  dragged  his  food  up  in  a  basket  till  he 
got  to  Liverpool.  If  he  did  n't  go  crazy  about  Irene,  he  'd 
wake  up  raving  about  Honora;  and  if  he  got  away  from 
Honora,  Adelia  Louise  would  have  him  '  down  on  the  mat.' " 
From  which  Mr.  Palford  argued  that  the  impression  made 
by  the  little  Miss  Hutchinson  with  the  Manchester  accent  had 
not  yet  had  time  to  obliterate  itself. 

The  Gazelles  were  of  generous  Southern  spirit,  and  did  not 
surround  their  prize  with  any  barrier  of  precautions  against 
other  young  persons  of  charm.  They  introduced  him  to  one  girl 
after  another,  and  in  a  day  or  two  he  was  the  center  of  ani 
mated  circles  whenever  he  appeard.  The  singular  thing,  how 
ever,  was  that  he  did  not  appear  as  often  as  the  other  men  who 
were  on  board.  He  seemed  to  stay  a  great  deal  with  Strange- 
ways,  who  shared  his  suite  of  rooms  and  never  came  on  deck. 
Sometimes  the  Gazelles  prettily  reproached  him.  Adelia  Louise 
suggested  to  the  others  that  his  lack  of  advantages  in  the  past 
had  made  him  feel  rather  awkward  and  embarrassed;  but 
Palford  knew  he  was  not  embarrassed.  He  accepted  his  own 
limitations  too  simply  to  be  disturbed  by  them.  Palford  would 
have  been  extremely  bored  by  him  if  he  had  been  of  the  type 
of  young  outsider  who  is  anxious  about  himself  and  expansive 


110  T.    TEMBAROM 

in  self-revelation  and  appeals  for  advice;  but  sometimes  Tem- 
barom's  air  of  frankness,  which  was  really  the  least  expansive 
thing  in  the  world  and  revealed  nothing  whatever,  besides  con 
cealing  everything  it  chose,  made  him  feel  himself  almost  ir- 
ritatingly  baffled.  It  would  have  been  more  natural  if  he  had 
not  been  able  to  keep  anything  to  himself  and  had  really 
talked  too  much. 


CHAPTEE  X 


HE  necessary  business  in  London  having  been 
transacted,  Tembarom  went  north  to  take 
possession  of  the  home  of  his  forefathers. 
It  had  rained  for  two  days  before  he  left 
London,  and  it  rained  steadily  all  the  way 
to  Lancashire,  and  was  raining  steadily  when 
he  reached  Temple  Barholm.  He  had  never 
seen  such  rain  before.  It  was  the  quiet,  un 
moved  persistence  of  it  which  amazed  him. 
As  he  sat  in  the  railroad  carriage  and  watched  the  slanting  lines 
of  its  unabating  downpour,  he  felt  that  Mr.  Palford  must  in 
evitably  make  some  remark  upon  it.  But  Mr.  Palford  con 
tinued  to  read  his  newspapers  undisturbedly,  as  though  the  con 
dition  of  atmosphere  surrounding  him  were  entirely  accus 
tomed  and  natural.  It  was  of  course  necessary  and  proper  that 
he  should  accompany  his  client  to  his  destination,  but  the  cir 
cumstances  of  the  case  made  the  whole  situation  quite  abnormal. 
Throughout  the  centuries  each  Temple  Barholm  had  succeeded  to 
his  estate  in  a  natural  and  conventional  manner.  He  had  either 
been  welcomed  or  resented  by  his  neighbors,  his  tenants,  and  his 
family,  and  proper  and  fitting  ceremonies  had  been  observed. 
But  here  was  an  heir  whom  nobody  knew,  whose  very  existence 
nobody  had  even  suspected,  a  young  man  who  had  been  an  outcast 
in  the  streets  of  the  huge  American  city  of  which  lurid  descrip 
tions  are  given.  Even  in  New  York  he  could  have  produced  no 
circle  other  than  Mrs.  Bowse's  boarding-house  and  the  objects  of 
interest  to  the  up-town  page,  so  he  brought  no  one  with  him; 
for  Strangeways  seemed  to  have  been  mysteriously  disposed  of 
after  their  arrival  in  London. 

Never  had  Palford  &  Grimby  on  their  hands  a  client  who 
seemed  so  entirely  alone.  What,  Mr.  Palford  asked  himself, 
would  he  do  in  the  enormity  of  Temple  Barholm,  which  always 

111 


112  T.   TEMBAEOM 

struck  one  as  being  a  place  almost  without  limit.  But  that, 
after  all,  was  neither  here  nor  there.  There  he  was.  You  can 
not  undertake  to  provide  a  man  with  relatives  if  he  has  none, 
or  with  acquaintances  if  people  do  not  want  to  know  him.  His 
past  having  been  so  extraordinary,  the  neighborhood  would  nat 
urally  be  rather  shy  of  him.  At  first,  through  mere  force  of 
custom  and  respect  for  an  old  name,  punctilious,  if  somewhat 
alarmed,  politeness  would  be  shown  by  most  people;  but  after 
the  first  calls  all  would  depend  upon  how  much  people  could 
stand  of  the  man  himself. 

The  aspect  of  the  country  on  a  wet  winter's  day  was  not  en 
livening.  The  leafless  and  dripping  hedges  looked  like  bundles 
of  sticks;  the  huge  trees,  which  in  June  would  be  majestic 
bowers  of  greenery,  now  held  out  great  skeleton  arms,  which 
seemed  to  menace  both  earth  and  sky.  Heavy-faced  laborers 
tramped  along  muddy  lanes;  cottages  with  soaked  bits  of  dead 
gardens  looked  like  hovels ;  big,  melancholy  cart-horses,  dragging 
jolting  carts  along  the  country  roads,  hung  their  heads  as  they 
splashed  through  the  mire. 

As  Tembarom  had  known  few  persons  who  had  ever  been  out 
of  America,  he  had  not  heard  that  England  was  beautiful,  and 
he  saw  nothing  which  led  him  to  suspect  its  charms.  London 
had  impressed  him  as  gloomy,  dirty,  and  behind  the  times  de 
spite  its  pretensions ;  the  country  struck  him  as  "  the  limit." 
Hully  gee !  was  he  going  to  be  expected  to  spend  his  life  in 
this !  Should  he  be  obliged  to  spend  his  life  in  it.  He  'd  find 
that  out  pretty  quick,  and  then,  if  there  was  no  hard-and-fast 
law  against  it,  him  for  little  old  New  York  again,  if  he  had  to 
give  up  the  whole  thing  and  live  on  ten  per.  If  he  had  been 
a  certain  kind  of  youth,  his  discontent  would  have  got  the 
better  of  him,  and  he  might  have  talked  a  good  deal  to  Mr. 
Palford  and  said  many  disparaging  things. 

"But  the.  man  was  born  here/'  he  reflected.  "I  guess  he 
does  n't  know  anything  else,  and  thinks  it 's  all  right.  I  've 
heard  of  English  fellows  who  didn't  like  New  York.  He  looks 
like  that  kind." 

He  had  supplied  himself  with  newspapers  and  tried  to  read 
them.  Their  contents  were  as  unexciting  as  the  rain-sodder 


T.   TEMBAROM  113 

landscape.  There  were  no  head-lines  likely  to  arrest  any  man's 
attention.  There  was  a  lot  about  Parliament  and  the  Court, 
and  one  of  them  had  a  column  or  two  about  what  lords  and 
ladies  were  doing,  a  sort  of  English  up-town  or  down-town 
page. 

He  knew  the  stuff,  but  there  was  no  snap  in  it,  and  there 
were  no  photographs  or  descriptions  of  dresses.  Galton  would 
have  turned  it  down.  He  could  never  have  made  good  if  he 
had  done  no  better  than  that.  He  grinned  to  himself  when  he 
read  that  the  king  had  taken  a  drive  and  that  a  baby  prince 
had  the  measles. 

"I  wonder  what  they'd  think  of  the  Sunday  Earth"  he 
mentally  inquired. 

He  would  have  been  much  at  sea  if  he  had  discovered  what 
they  really  would  have  thought  of  it.  They  passed  through 
smoke-vomiting  manufacturing  towns,  where  he  saw  many  legs 
seemingly  bearing  about  umbrellas,  but  few  entire  people;  they 
whizzed  smoothly  past  drenched  suburbs,  wet  woodlands,  and 
endless-looking  brown  moors,  covered  with  dead  bracken  and 
bare  and  prickly  gorse.  He  thought  these  last  great  desolate 
stretches  worse  than  all  the  rest. 

But  the  railroad  carriage  was  luxuriously  upholstered  and 
comfortable,  though  one  could  not  walk  about  and  stretch  his 
legs.  In  the  afternoon,  Mr.  Palford  ordered  in  tea,  and  plainly 
expected  him  to  drink  two  cups  and  eat  thin  bread  and  butter. 
He  felt  inclined  to  laugh,  though  the  tea  was  all  right,  and  so 
was  the  bread  and  butter,  and  he  did  not  fail  his  companion 
in  any  respect.  The  inclination  to  laugh  was  aroused  by  the 
thought  of  what  Jim  Bowles  and  Julius  would  say  if  they 
could  see  old  T.  T.  with  nothing  to  do  at  4:30  but  put  in 
cream  and  sugar,  as  though  he  were  at  a  tea-party  on  Fifth 
Avenue. 

But,  gee!  this  rain  did  give  him  the  "Willies.  If  he  was 
going  to  be  sorry  for  himself,  he  might  begin  right  now.  But 
he  wasn't.  He  was  going  to  see  this  thing  through. 

The  train  had  been  continuing  its  smooth  whir  through 
fields,  wooded  lands,  and  queer,  dead-and-alive  little  villages 
for  some  time  before  it  drew  up  at  last  at  a  small  station. 


114  T.    TEMBAEOM 

Bereft  by  the  season  of  its  garden  bloom  and  green  creepers, 
it  looked  a  bare  and  uninviting  little  place.  On  the  two  benches 
against  the  wall  of  the  platform  a  number  of  women  sat  huddled 
together  in  the  dampness.  Several  of  them  held  children  in 
their  laps  and  all  stared  very  hard,  nudging  one  another  as  he 
descended  from  the  train.  A  number  of  rustics  stood  about  the 
platform,  giving  it  a  somewhat  crowded  air.  It  struck  Tem- 
barom  that,  for  an  out-of-the-way  place,  there  seemed  to  be  a 
good  many  travelers,  and  he  wondered  if  they  could  all  be  going 
away.  He  did  not  know  that  they  were  the  curious  element 
among  such  as  lived  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the 
station  and  had  come  out  merely  to  see  him  on  his  first  appear 
ance.  Several  of  them  touched  their  hats  as  he  went  by,  and 
he  supposed  they  knew  Palford  and  were  saluting  him.  Each 
of  them  was  curious,  but  no  one  was  in  a  particularly  welcom 
ing  mood.  There  was,  indeed,  no  reason  for  anticipating  en 
thusiasm.  It  was,  however,  but  human  nature  that  the  bucolic 
mind  should  bestir  itself  a  little  in  the  desire  to  obtain  a  view 
of  a  Temple  Barholm  who  had  earned  his  living  by  blacking 
boots  and  selling  newspapers,  unknowing  that  he  was  "  one  o' 
th'  gentry." 

When  he  stepped  from  his  first-class  carriage,  Tembarom 
found  himself  confronted  by  a  very  straight,  clean-faced,  and 
well-built  young  man,  who  wore  a  long,  fawn-colored  livery  coat 
with  claret  facings  and  silver  buttons.  He  touched  his  cock- 
aded  hat,  and  at  once  took  up  the  Gladstone  bags.  Tembarom 
knew  that  he  was  a  footman  because  he  had  seen  something 
like  him  outside  restaurants,  theaters,  and  shops  in  New  York, 
but  he  was  not  sure  whether  he  ought  to  touch  his  own  hat  or 
not.  He  slightly  lifted  it  from  his  head  to  show  there  was  no 
ill  feeling,  and  then  followed  him  and  Mr.  Palford  to  the  car 
riage  waiting  for  them.  It  was  a  severe  but  sumptuous  equip 
age,  and  the  coachman  was  as  well  dressed  and  well  built  as  the 
footman.  Tembarom  took  his  place  in  it  with  many  mental 
reservations. 

"What  are  the  illustrations  on  the  doors?"  he  inquired. 

"  The  Temple  Barholm  coat  of  arms,"  Mr.  Palford  answered. 
"  The  people  at  the  station  are  your  tenants.  Members  of  the 


T.    TEMBAROM  115 

family  of  the  stout  man  with  the  broad  hat  have  lived  as  yeo 
man  farmers  on  your  land  for  three  hundred  years." 

They  went  on  their  way,  with  more  rain,  more  rain,  more 
dripping  hedges,  more  soaked  fields,  and  more  bare,  huge- 
armed  trees.  Clop,  clop,  clop,  sounded  the  horses'  hoofs  along 
the  road,  and  from  his  corner  of  the  carriage  Mr.  Palford  tried 
to  make  polite  conversation.  Faces  peered  out  of  the  windows 
of  the  cottages,  sometimes  a  whole  family  group  of  faces,  all 
crowded  together,  eager  to  look,  from  the  mother  with  a  baby 
in  her  arms  to  the  old  man  or  woman,  plainly  grandfather 
or  grandmother  —  sharp,  childishly  round,  or  bleared  old 
eyes,  all  excited  and  anxious  to  catch  glimpses. 

"  They  are  very  curious  to  see  you,"  said  Mr.  Palford. 
"  Those  two  laborers  are  touching  their  hats  to  you.  It  will 
be  as  well  to  recognize  their  salute/' 

At  a  number  of  the  cottage  doors  the  group  stood  upon  the 
threshold  and  touched  foreheads  or  curtsied.  Tembarom  sa 
luted  again  and  again,  and  more  than  once  his  friendly  grin 
showed  itself.  It  made  him  feel  queer  to  drive  along,  turning 
from  side  to  side  to  acknowledge  obeisances,  as  he  had  seen  a 
well-known  military  hero  acknowledge  them  as  he  drove  down 
Broadway. 

The  chief  street  of  the  village  of  Temple  Barholm  wandered 
almost  within  hailing  distance  of  the  great  entrance  to  the 
park.  The  gates  were  supported  by  massive  pillars,  on  which 
crouched  huge  stone  griffins.  Tembarom  felt  that  they  stared 
savagely  over  his  head  as  he  was  driven  toward  them  as  for  in 
spection,  and  in  disdainful  silence  allowed  to  pass  between 
them  as  they  stood  on  guard,  apparently  with  the  haughtiest 
mental  reservations. 

The  park  through  which  the  long  avenue  rolled  concealed  its 
beauty  to  the  unaccustomed  eye,  showing  only  more  bare  trees 
and  sodden  stretches  of  brown  grass.  The  house  itself,  as  it 
loomed  up  out  of  the  thickening  rain-mist,  appalled  Tembarom 
by  its  size  and  gloomily  gray  massiveness.  Before  it  was  spread 
a  broad  terrace  of  stone,  guarded  by  more  griffins  of  even  more 
disdainful  aspect  than  those  watching  over  the  gates.  The 
stone  noses  held  themselves  rigidly  in  the  air  as  the  reporter 


116  T.   TEMBAROM 

of  the  up-town  society  page  passed  with  Mr.  Palford  up  a  flight 
of  steps  broad  enough  to  make  him  feel  as  though  he  were  going 
to  church.  Footmen  with  powdered  heads  received  him  at  the 
carriage  door,  seemed  to  assist  him  to  move,  to  put  one  foot 
before  the  other  for  him,  to  stand  in  rows  as  though  they 
were  a  military  guard  ready  to  take  him  into  custody. 

Then  he  was  inside,  standing  in  an  enormous  hall  filled  with 
furnishings  such  as  he  had  never  seen  or  heard  of  before. 
Carved  oak,  suits  of  armor,  stone  urns,  portraits,  another  flight 
of  church  steps  mounting  upward  to  surrounding  galleries, 
stained-glass  windows,  tigers'  and  lions'  heads,  horns  of  tremen 
dous  size,  strange  and  beautiful  weapons,  suggested  to  him 
that  the  dream  he  had  been  living  in  for  weeks  had  never 
before  been  so  much  a  dream.  He  had  walked  about  as  in 
a  vision,  but  among  familiar  surroundings.  Mrs.  Bowse's 
boarders  and  his  hall  bedroom  had  helped  him  to  retain  some 
hold  over  actual  existence.  But  here  the  reverently  saluting 
villagers  staring  at  him  through  windows  as  though  he  were 
General  Grant,  the  huge,  stone  entrance,  the  drive  of  what 
seemed  to  be  ten  miles  through  the  park,  the  gloomy  mass  of 
architecture  looming  up,  the  regiment  of  liveried  men-servants, 
with  respectfully  lowered  but  excitedly  curious  eyes,  the  dark 
and  solemn  richness  inclosing  and  claiming  him  —  all  this 
created  an  atmosphere  wholly  unreal.  As  he  had  not  known 
books,  its  parallel  had  not  been  suggested  to  him  by  literature. 
He  had  literally  not  heard  that  such  things  existed.  Selling 
newspapers  and  giving  every  moment  to  the  struggle  for  life 
or  living,  one  did  not  come  within  the  range  of  splendors.  He 
had  indeed  awakened  in  that  other  world  of  which  he  had 
spoken.  And  though  he  had  heard  that  there  was  another 
world,  he  had  had  neither  time  nor  opportunity  to  make  mental 
pictures  of  it.  His  life  so  far  had  expressed  itself  in  another 
language  of  figures.  The  fact  that  he  had  in  his  veins  the 
blood  of  the  Norman  lords  and  Saxon  kings  may  or  may  not 
have  had  something  to  do  with  the  fact  that  he  was  not  abashed, 
but  bewildered.  The  same  factor  may  or  may  not  have  aided 
him  to  preserve  a  certain  stoic,  outward  composure.  Who 
knows  what  remote  influences  express  themselves  in  common 


T.    TEMBAROM  117 

acts  of  modern  common  life?  As  Cassivellaunus  observed  his 
surroundings  as  he  followed  in  captive  chains  his  conqueror's 
triumphal  car  through  the  streets  of  Rome,  so  the  keen-eyed 
product  of  New  York  pavement  life  "  took  in  "  all  about  him. 
Existence  had  forced  upon  him  the  habit  of  sharp  observance. 
The  fundamental  working  law  of  things  had  expressed  itself 
in  the  simple  colloquialism,  "  Keep  your  eye  skinned,  and  don't 
give  yourself  away."  In  what  phrases  the  parallel  of  this 
concise  advice  formulated  itself  in  55  B.  C.  no  classic  has  yet 
exactly  informed  us,  but  doubtless  something  like  it  was  said  in 
ancient  Eome.  Tembarom  did  not  give  himself  away,  and  he 
took  rapid,  if  uncertain,  inventory  of  people  and  things.  He 
remarked,  for  instance,  that  Palford's  manner  of  speaking  to  a 
servant  was  totally  different  from  the  manner  he  used  in  ad 
dressing  himself.  It  was  courteous,  but  remote,  as  though  he 
spoke  across  an  accepted  chasm  to  beings  of  another  race. 
There  was  no  hint  of  incivility  in  it,  but  also  no  hint  of  any 
possibility  that  it  could  occur  to  the  person  addressed  to  hesi 
tate  or  resent.  It  was  a  subtle  thing,  and  Tembarom  wondered 
how  he  did  it. 

They  were  shown  into  a  room  the  walls  of  which  seemed  built 
of  books;  the  furniture  was  rich  and  grave  and  luxuriously 
comfortable.  A  fire  blazed  as  well  as  glowed  in  a  fine  chimney, 
and  a  table  near  it  was  set  with  a  glitter  of  splendid  silver 
urn  and  equipage  for  tea. 

"  Mrs.  Butterworth  was  afraid  you  might  not  have  been 
able  to  get  tea,  sir,"  said  the  man-servant,  who  did  not  wear 
livery,  but  whose  butler's  air  of  established  authority  was  more 
impressive  than  any  fawn,  color  and  claret  enriched  with  silver 
could  have  encompassed. 

Tea  again?  Perhaps  one  was  obliged  to  drink  it  at  regular 
intervals.  Tembarom  for  a  moment  did  not  awaken  to  the 
fact  that  the  man  was  speaking  to  him,  as  the  master  from 
whom  orders  came.  He  glanced  at  Mr.  Palford. 

"  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  had  tea  after  we  left  Crowly,"  Mr. 
Palford  said.  "  He  will  no  doubt  wish  to  go  to  his  room  at 
once,  Burrill." 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  Burrill,  with  that  note  of  entire  absence 


118  T.    TEMBAROM 

of   comment   with   which    Tembarom   later   became    familiar. 
"  Pearson  is  waiting." 

It  was  not  unnatural  to  wonder  who  Pearson  was  and  why 
he  was  waiting,  but  Tembarom  knew  he  would  find  out.  There 
was  a  slight  relief  on  realizing  that  tea  was  not  imperative. 
He  and  Mr.  Palford  were  led  through  the  hall  again.  The 
carriage  had  rolled  away,  and  two  footmen,  who  were  talking 
confidentially  together,  at  once  stood  at  attention.  The  stair 
case  was  more  imposing  as  one  mounted  it  than  it  appeared  as 
one  looked  at  it  from  below.  Its  breadth  made  Tembarom 
wish  to  lay  a  hand  on  a  balustrade,  which  seemed  a  mile  away. 
He  had  never  particularly  wished  to  touch  balustrades  before. 
At  the  head  of  the  first  flight  hung  an  enormous  piece  of  tapestry, 
its  forest  and  hunters  and  falconers  awakening  Tembarom's 
'  curiosity,  as  it  looked  wholly  unlike  any  picture  he  had  ever 
seen  in  a  shop-window.  There  were  pictures  everywhere,  and 
none  of  them  looked  like  chromos.  Most  of  the  people  in  the 
portraits  were  in  fancy  dress.  Rumors  of  a  New  York  million 
aire  ball  had  given  him  some  vague  idea  of  fancy  dress.  A  lot 
of  them  looked  like  freaks.  He  caught  glimpses  of  corridors 
lighted  by  curious,  high,  deep  windows  with  leaded  panes.  It 
struck  him  that  there  was  no  end  to  the  place,  and  that  there 
must  be  rooms  enough  in  it  for  a  hotel. 

"The  tapestry  chamber,  of  course,  Burrill,"  he  heard  Mr. 
Palford  say  in  a  low  tone. 

"  Yes,  sir.     Mr.  Temple  Barholm  always  used  it." 

A  few  yards  farther  on  a  door  stood  open,  revealing  an  im 
mense  room,  rich  and  gloomy  with  tapestry-covered  walls  and 
dark  oak  furniture.  A  bed  which  looked  to  Tembarom  in 
credibly  big,  with  its  carved  oak  canopy  and  massive  posts, 
had  a  presiding  personality  of  its  own.  It  was  mounted  by 
steps,  and  its  hangings  and  coverlid  were  of  embossed  velvet, 
time-softened  to  the  perfection  of  purples  and  blues.  A  fire 
enriched  the  color  of  everything,  and  did  its  best  to  drive  the 
shadows  away.  Deep  windows  opened  either  into  the  leafless 
boughs  of  close-growing  trees  or  upon  outspread  spaces  of  heav 
ily  timbered  park,  where  gaunt,  though  magnificent,  bare 
branches  menaced  and  defied.  A  slim,  neat  young  man,  with  a 


T.    TEMBAEOM  119 

rather  pale  face  and  a  touch  of  anxiety  in  his  expression,  came 
forward  at  once. 

"  This  is  Pearson,  who  will  valet  you,"  exclaimed  Mr.  Palf ord. 

"  Thank  you,  sir,"  said  Pearson  in  a  low,  respectful  voice. 
His  manner  was  correctness  itself. 

There  seemed  to  Mr.  Palford  to  be  really  nothing  else  to 
say.  He  wanted,  in  fact,  to  get  to  his  own  apartment  and  have 
a  hot  bath  and  a  rest  before  dinner. 

"  "Where  am  I,  Burrill  ? "  he  inquired  as  he  turned  to  go 
down  the  corridor. 

"  The  crimson  room,  sir,"  answered  Burrill,  and  he  closed 
the  door  of  the  tapestry  chamber  and  shut  Tembarom  in  alone 
with  Pearson. 


CHAPTER  XI 

OR  a  few  moments  the  two  young  men  looked 
at  each  other,  Pearson's  gaze  being  one  of 
respectfulness  which  hoped  to  propitiate,  if 
propitiation  was  necessary,  though  Pearson 
greatly  trusted  it  was  not.  Tembarom's  was 
the  gaze  of  hasty  investigation  and  inquiry. 
He  suddenly  thought  that  it  would  have  been 
"  all  to  the  merry "  if  somebody  had  "  put  him  on  to " 
a  sort  of  idea  of  what  was  done  to  a  fellow  when  he  was 
"valeted."  A  valet,  he  had  of  course  gathered,  waited  on  one 
somehow  and  looked  after  one's  clothes.  But  were  there  by 
chance  other  things  he  expected  to  do, —  manicure  one's  nails 
or  cut  one's  hair, —  and  how  often  did  he  do  it,  and  was  this  the 
day  ?  He  was  evidently  there  to  do  something,  or  he  would  n't 
have  been  waiting  behind  the  door  to  pounce  out  the  minute 
he  appeared,  and  when  the  other  two  went  away,  Bwrill 
wouldn't  have  closed  the  door  as  solemnly  as  though  he  shut 
the  pair  of  them  in  together  to  get  through  some  sort  of  per 
formance. 

"  Here 's  where  T.  T.  begins  to  feel  like  a  fool,"  he  thought. 
"  And  here  's  where  there  's  no  way  out  of  looking  like  one.  I 
don't  know  a  thing." 

But  personal  vanity  was  not  so  strong  in  him  as  healthy 
and  normal  good  temper.  Despite  the  fact  that  the  neat  cor 
rectness  of  Pearson's  style  and  the  finished  expression  of  his 
neat  face  suggested  that  he  was  of  a  class  which  knew  with 
the  most  finished  exactness  all  that  custom  and  propriety  de 
manded  on  any  occasion  on  which  "  valeting  "  in  its  most  occult 
branches  might  be  done,  he  was  only  "  another  fellow,"  after 
all,  and  must  be  human.  So  Tembarom  smiled  at  him. 
"  Hello,  Pearson,"  he  said.  "  How  are  you  ?  " 

120 


T.    TEMBAROM  121 

Pearson  slightly  started.  It  was  the  tiniest  possible  start, 
quite  involuntary,  from  which  he  recovered  instantly,  to  re 
ply  in  a  tone  of  respectful  gratefulness : 

"  Thank  you,  sir,  very  well ;  thank  you,  sir." 

"  That 's  all  right,"  answered  Tembarom,  a  sense  of  relief 
because  he'd  "got  started"  increasing  the  friendliness  of  his 
smile.  "  I  see  you  got  my  trunk  open,"  he  said,  glancing  at 
some  articles  of  clothing  neatly  arranged  upon  the  bed. 

Pearson  was  slightly  alarmed.  It  occurred  to  him  suddenly 
that  perhaps  it  was  not  the  custom  in  America  to  open  a 
gentleman's  box  and  lay  out  his  clothes  for  him.  For  special 
reasons  he  was  desperately  anxious  to  keep  his  place,  and  above 
all  things  he  felt  he  must  avoid  giving  offense  by  doing 
things  which,  by  being  too  English,  might  seem  to  cast  shades 
of  doubt  on  the  entire  correctness  of  the  customs  of  America. 
He  had  known  ill  feeling  to  arise  between  "  gentlemen's  gentle 
men  "  in  the  servants'  hall  in  the  case  of  slight  differences  in 
customs,  contested  with  a  bitterness  of  feeling  which  had  made 
them  almost  an  international  question.  There  had  naturally 
been  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  the  new  Mr.  Temple  Barholm 
and  what  might  be  expected  of  him.  When  a  gentleman  was 
not  a  gentleman, —  this  was  the  form  of  expression  in  "  the 
hall," — the  Lord  only  knew  what  would  happen.  And  this 
one,  who  had,  for  all  one  knew,  been  born  in  a  workhouse,  and 
had  been  a  boot-black  kicked  about  in  American  streets, —  they 
did  not  know  Tembarom, —  and  nearly  starved  to  death,  and 
found  at  last  in  a  low  lodging-house,  what  could  he  know  about 
decent  living?  And  ten  to  one  he'd  be  American  enough  to 
swagger  and  bluster  and  pretend  he  knew  everything  better 
than  any  one  else,  and  lose  his  temper  frightfully  when  he 
made  mistakes,  and  try  to  make  other  people  seem  to  blame. 
Set  a  beggar  on  horseback,  and  who  did  n't  know  what  he  was  ? 
There  were  chances  enough  and  to  spare  that  not  one  of  them 
would  be  able  to  stand  it,  and  that  in  a  month's  time  they 
would  all  be  looking  for  new  places. 

So  while  Tembarom  was  rather  afraid  of  Pearson  and  moved 
about  in  an  awful  state  of  uncertainty,  Pearson  was  horribly 
afraid  of  Tembarom,  and  was,  in  fact,  in  such  a  condition  of 


122  T.    TEMBAKOM 

nervous  anxiety  that  he  was  obliged  more  than  once  furtively 
to  apply  to  his  damp,  pale  young  forehead  his  exceedingly  fresh 
and  spotless  pocket-handkerchief. 

In   the   first   place,   there   was   the   wardrobe.     What   could 
he   do?     How  could  he   approach   the  subject  with   sufficient 
delicacy?     Mr.  Temple  Barholm  had  brought  with  him  only 
a  steamer  trunk  and  a  Gladstone  bag,  the  latter  evidently  bought 
in  London,  to  be  stuffed  with  hastily  purchased  handkerchiefs 
and  shirts,  worn  as  they  came  out  of  the  shop,  and  as  evidently 
bought  without  the  slightest  idea  of  the  kind  of  linen  a  gentle 
man  should  own.     What  most  terrified  Pearson,  who  was  of  a 
timid  and  most  delicate-minded  nature,  was  that  having  the 
workhouse  and  the  boot-blacking  as   a  background,  the  new 
Mr.  Temple  Barholm  could  n't  know,  as  all  this  had  come  upon 
him  so  suddenly.     And  was  it  to  be  Pearson's  calamitous  duty 
to  explain  to  him  that  he  had  nothing,  that  he  apparently  Tcnew 
nothing,   and  that  as  he  had  no  friends  who  knew,  a  mere 
common  servant  must  educate  him,  if  he  did  not  wish  to  see 
him  derided  and  looked  down  upon  and  actually  "cut"  by 
gentlemen  that  were  gentlemen?     All  this  to  say  nothing  of 
Pearson's  own  well-earned  reputation  for  knowledge  of  custom, 
intelligence,  and  deftness  in  turning  out  the  objects  of  his  care 
in  such  form  as  to  be  a  reference  in  themselves  when  a  new 
place  was  wanted.     Of  course  sometimes  there  were  even  real 
gentlemen  who  were  most  careless  and  indifferent  to  appearance, 
and  who,  if  left  to  themselves,  would  buy  garments  which  made 
the  blood  run  cold  when  one  realized  that  his  own  character 
and  hopes  for  the  future  often  depended  upon  his  latest  em 
ployer's  outward  aspect.     But  the  ulster  in  which  Mr.  Temple 
Barholm  had   presented   himself  was   of   a  cut  and  material 
such  as  Pearson's  most  discouraged  moments  had  never  forced 
him   to   contemplate.     The   limited  wardrobe  in   the   steamer 
trunk  was  all  new  and  all  equally  bad.     There  was  no  evening 
dress,  no  proper  linen, —  not  what  Pearson  called  "proper," — 
no  proper  toilet  appurtenances.     What  was  Pearson  called  upon 
by  duty  to  do?     If  he  had  only  had  the  initiative  to  antici 
pate  this,  he  might  have  asked  permission  to  consult  in  darkest 
secrecy  with  Mr.  Palford.     But  he  had  never  dreamed  of  such 


T.    TEMBAROM  123 

a  situation,  and  apparently  he  would  be  obliged  to  send  his  new 
charge  down  to  his  first  dinner  in  the  majestically  decorous 
dining-room,  "  before  all  the  servants/'  in  a  sort  of  speckled 
tweed  cutaway,  with  a  brown  necktie. 

Tembarom,  realizing  without  delay  that  Pearson  did  not  ex 
pect  to  be  talked  to  and  being  cheered  by  the  sight  of  the  fire, 
sat  down  before  it  in  an  easy-chair  the  like  of  which  for  lux 
urious  comfort  he  had  never  known.  He  was,  in  fact,  waiting 
for  developments.  Pearson  would  say  or  do  something  shortly 
which  would  give  him  a  chance  to  "  catch  on,"  or  perhaps  he  'd 
go  out  of  the  room  and  leave  him  to  himself,  which  would  be 
a  thing  to  thank  God  for.  Then  he  could  wash  his  face  and 
hands,  brush  his  hair,  and  wait  till  the  dinner-bell  rang. 
They  'd  be  likely  to  have  one.  They  ?d  have  to  in  a  place  like 
this. 

But  Pearson  did  not  go  out  of  the  room.  He  moved  about 
behind  him  for  a  short  time  with  footfall  so  almost  entirely 
soundless  that  Tembarom  became  aware  that,  if  it  went  on  long, 
he  should  be  nervous;  in  fact,  he  was  nervous  already.  He 
wanted  to  know  what  he  was  doing.  He  could  scarcely  resist 
the  temptation  to  turn  his  head  and  look;  but  he  did  not  want 
to  give  himself  away  more  entirely  than  was  unavoidable,  and, 
besides,  instinct  told  him  that  he  might  frighten  Pearson,  who 
looked  frightened  enough,  in  a  neat  and  well-mannered  way, 
already.  Hully  gee!  how  he  wished  he  would  go  out  of  the 
room! 

But  he  did  not.  There  were  gently  gliding  footsteps  of 
Pearson  behind  him,  quiet  movements  which  would  have  seemed 
stealthy  if  they  had  been  a  burglar's,  soft  removals  of  articles 
from  one  part  of  the  room  to  another,  delicate  brushings,  and 
almost  noiseless  foldings.  Now  Pearson  was  near  the  bed,  now 
he  had  opened  a  wardrobe,  now  he  was  looking  into  the  steamer 
trunk,  now  he  had  stopped  somewhere  behind  him,  within  a 
few  yards  of  his  chair.  Why  had  he  ceased  moving?  What 
was  he  looking  at?  What  kept  him  quiet? 

Tembarom  expected  him  to  begin  stirring  mysteriously  again; 
but  he  did  not.  Why  did  he  not?  There  reigned  in  the  room 
entire  silence;  no  soft  footfalls,  no  brushing,  no  folding.  Was 


124  T.   TEMBAROM 

lie  doing  nothing?  Had  he  got  hold  of  something  which  had 
given  him  a  fit?  There  had  been  no  sound  of  a  fall;  but 
perhaps  even  if  an  English  valet  had  a  fit,  he  'd  have  it  so 
quietly  and  respectfully  that  one  would  n't  hear  it.  Tembarom 
felt  that  he  must  be  looking  at  the  back  of  his  head,  and  he 
wondered  what  was  the  matter  with  it.  "Was  his  hair  cut  in 
a  way  so  un-English  that  it  had  paralyzed  him?  The  back  of 
his  head  began  to  creep  under  an  investigation  so  prolonged. 
No  sound  at  all,  no  movement.  Tembarom  stealthily  took  out 
his  watch  —  good  old  Waterbury  he  was  n't  going  to  part  with 
—  and  began  to  watch  the  minute-hand.  If  nothing  happened 
in  three  minutes  he  was  going  to  turn  round.  One  —  two  — 
three  —  and  the  silence  made  it  seem  fifteen.  He  returned  his 
Waterbury  to  his  pocket  and  turned  round. 

Pearson  was  not  dead.  He  was  standing  quite  still  and 
resigned,  waiting.  It  was  his  business  to  wait,  not  to  intrude 
or  disturb,  and  having  put  everything  in  order  and  done  all  he 
could  do,  he  was  waiting  for  further  commands  —  in  some 
suspense,  it  must  be  admitted. 

"  Hello ! "  exclaimed  Tembarom,  involuntarily. 

"  Shall  I  get  your  bath  ready,  sir  ?  "  inquired  Pearson.  "  Do 
you  like  it  hot  or  cold,  sir  ?  " 

Tembarom  drew  a  relieved  breath.  He  hadn't  dropped 
dead  and  he  hadn't  had  a  fit,  and  here  was  one  of  the  things 
a  man  did  when  he  valeted  you  —  he  got  your  bath  ready.  A 
hasty  recollection  of  the  much-used,  paint-smeared  tin  bath  on 
the  fourth  floor  of  Mrs.  Bowse's  boarding-house  sprang  up  be 
fore  him.  Everybody  had  to  use  it  in  turn,  and  you  waited 
hours  for  the  chance  to  make  a  dash  into  it.  No  one  stood 
still  and  waited  fifteen  minutes  until  you  got  good  and 
ready  to  tell  him  he  could  go  and  turn  on  the  water.  Gee 
whizz ! 

Being  relieved  himself,  he  relieved  Pearson  by  telling  him  he 
might  "  fix  it "  for  him,  and  that  he  would  have  hot  water. 

"  Very  good,  sir.  Thank  you,  sir,"  said  Pearson,  and  silently 
left  the  room. 

Then  Tembarom  got  up  from  his  chair  and  began  to  walk 
about  rather  restlessly.  A  new  alarm  seized  him.  Did  Pear- 


T.    TEMBAROM  125 

son  expect  to  wash  him  or  to  stand  round  and  hand  him  soap 
and  towels  and  things  while  he  washed  himself? 

If  it  was  supposed  that  you  had  n't  the  strength  to  turn  the 
faucets  yourself,  it  might  be  supposed  you  did  n't  have  the 
energy  to  use  a  flesh-brush  and  towels.  Did  valeting  include 
a  kind  of  shampoo  all  over? 

"  I  could  n't  stand  for  that,"  he  said.  "  I  'd  have  to  tell  him 
there  'd  been  no  Turkish  baths  in  mine,  and  I  'm  not  trained  up 
to  them.  When  I  've  got  on  to  this  kind  of  thing  a  bit  more, 
I  '11  make  him  understand  what  I  'm  not  in  for ;  but  I  don't 
want  to  scare  the  life  out  of  him  right  off.  He  looks  like  a 
good  little  fellow." 

But  Pearson's  duties  as  valet  did  not  apparently  include 
giving  him  his  bath  by  sheer  physical  force.  He  was  deft, 
calm,  amenable.  He  led  Tembarom  down  the  corridor  to  the 
bath-room,  revealed  to  him  stores  of  sumptuous  bath-robes  and 
towels,  hot-  and  cold-water  faucets,  sprays,  and  tonic  essences. 
He  forgot  nothing  and,  having  prepared  all,  mutely  vanished, 
and  returned  to  the  bedroom  to  wait  —  and  gaze  in  troubled 
wonder  at  the  speckled  tweed  cutaway.  There  was  an  appalling 
possibility  —  he  was  aware  that  he  was  entirely  ignorant  of 
American  customs  —  that  tweed  was  the  fashionable  home  even 
ing  wear  in  the  States.  Tembarom,  returning  from  his  bath 
much  refreshed  after  a  warm  plunge  and  a  cold  shower,  evidently 
felt  that  as  a  costume  it  was  all  that  could  be  desired. 

"  Will  you  wear  —  these,  sir, —  this  evening  ?  "  Pearson  sug 
gested. 

It  was  suggestive  of  more  than  actual  inquiry.  If  he  had 
dared  to  hope  that  his  manner  might  suggest  a  number  of 
things !  For  instance,  that  in  England  gentlemen  really  did  n't 
wear  tweed  in  the  evening  even  in  private.  That  through  some 
unforeseen  circumstances  his  employer's  evening-dress  suit  had 
been  delayed,  but  would  of  course  arrive  to-morrow! 

But  Tembarom,  physically  stimulated  by  hot  and  cold  water, 
and  relief  at  being  left  alone,  was  beginning  to  recover  his 
natural  buoyancy. 

"  Yes,  I  '11  wear  'em,"  he  answered,  snatching  at  his  hair 
brush  and  beginning  to  brush  his  damp  hair.  It  was  a  wooden- 


126  T.    TEMBAROM 

backed  brush  that  Pearson  had  found  in  his  Gladstone  bag 
and  shudderingly  laid  in  readiness  on  the  dressing-table.  "I 
guess  they  're  all  right,  ain't  they  ?  " 

"  Oh,  quite  right,  sir,  quite,"  Pearson  ventured  — "  for 
morning  wear." 

"  Morning  ?  "  said  Tembarom,  brushing  vigorously.  "  Not 
night?" 

"Black,  sir,"  most  delicately  hinted  Pearson,  "is  —  more 
usual  —  in  the  evening  —  in  England."  After  which  he  added, 
"  So  to  speak,"  with  a  vague  hope  that  the  mollifying  phrase 
might  counteract  the  effect  of  any  apparently  implied  asper 
sion  on  colors  preferred  in  America. 

Tembarom  ceased  brushing  his  hair,  and  looked  at  him  in 
good-natured  desire  for  information. 

"  Frock-coats  or  claw-hammer  ? "  he  asked.  Despite  his 
natural  anxiety,  and  in  the  midst  of  it,  Pearson  could  not  but 
admit  that  he  had  an  uncondemnatory  voice  and  a  sort  of  young 
way  with  him  which  gave  one  courage.  But  he  was  not  quite 
sure  of  "  claw-hammer." 

"  Frock-coats  for  morning  dress  and  afternoon  wear,  sir," 
he  ventured.  "  The  evening  cut,  as  you  know,  is  — " 

"  Claw-hammer.  Swallow-tail,  I  guess  you  say  here,"  Tem 
barom  ended  for  him,  quite  without  hint  of  rancor,  he  was  re 
joiced  to  see. 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Pearson. 

The  ceremony  of  dressing  proved  a  fearsome  thing  as  it 
went  on.  Pearson  moved  about  deftly  and  essayed  to  do  things 
for  the  new  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  which  the  new  Mr.  Temple 
Barholm  had  never  heard  of  a  man  not  doing  for  himself. 
He  reached  for  things  Pearson  was  about  to  hand  to  him  or 
hold  for  him.  He  unceremoniously  achieved  services  for  him 
self  which  it  was  part  of  Pearson's  manifest  duty  to  perform. 
They  got  into  each  other's  way;  there  was  even  danger  some 
times  of  their  seeming  to  snatch  things  from  each  other,  to 
Pearson's  unbounded  horror.  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  did  not 
express  any  irritation  whatsoever  misunderstandings  took  place, 
but  he  held  his  mouth  rather  close-shut,  and  Pearson,  not  aware 
that  he  did  this  as  a  precaution  against  open  grinning  or  shouts 


T.    TEMBAROM  127 

of  laughter  as  he  found  himself  unable  to  adjust  himself  to  his 
attendant's  movements,  thought  it  possible  that  he  was  secretly 
annoyed  and  regarded  the  whole  matter  with  disfavor.  But 
when  the  dressing  was  at  an  end  and  he  stood  ready  to  go  down 
in  all  his  innocent  ignoring  of  speckled  tweed  and  brown  neck 
tie,  he  looked  neither  flurried  nor  out  of  humor,  and  he  asked 
a  question  in  a  voice  which  was  actually  friendly.  It  was  a 
question  dealing  with  an  incident  which  had  aroused  much  in 
terest  in  the  servants'  hall  as  suggesting  a  touch  of  mystery. 

"Mr.  Strangeways  came  yesterday  all  right,  didn't  he?"  he 
inquired. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  Pearson  answered.  "  Mr.  Hutchinson  and  his 
daughter  came  with  him.  They  call  her  '  Little  Ann  Hutchin 
son.'  She  's  a  sensible  little  thing,  sir,  and  she  seemed  to  know 
exactly  what  you  'd  want  done  to  make  him  comfortable.  Mrs. 
Butterworth  put  him  in  the  west  room,  sir,  and  I  valeted  him. 
He  was  not  very  well  when  he  came,  but  he  seems  better  to-day, 
sir,  only  he 's  very  anxious  to  see  you." 

"That's  all  right,"  said  Tembarom.  "You  show  me  his 
room.  I  '11  go  and  see  him  now." 

And  being  led  by  Pearson,  he  went  without  delay. 


CHAPTEE  XII 

HE  chief  objection  to  Temple  Barholm  in 
Tembarom's  mind  was  that  it  was  too  big 
for  any  human  use.  That  at  least  was  how 
it  struck  him.  The  entrance  was  too  big,  the 
stairs  were  too  wide,  the  rooms  too  broad 
and  too  long  and  too  high  to  allow  of  eyes 
accustomed  to  hall  bedrooms  adjusting  their 
vision  without  discomfort.  The  dining-room 
in  which  the  new  owner  took  his  first  meal 
in  company  with  Mr.  Palford,  and  attended 
by  the  large,  serious  man  who  wore  no  livery  and  three 
tall  footmen  who  did,  was  of  a  size  and  stateliness  which 
made  him  feel  homesick  for  Mrs.  Bowse's  dining-room,  with  its 
two  hurried,  incompetent,  and  often-changed  waitresses  and  its 
prevailing  friendly  custom  of  pushing  things  across  the  table 
to  save  time.  Meals  were  quickly  disposed  of  at  Mrs.  Bowse's. 
Everybody  was  due  up-town  or  down-town,  and  regarded  food 
as  an  unavoidable,  because  necessary,  interference  with  more 
urgent  business.  At  Temple  Barholm  one  sat  half  the  night  — 
this  was  the  impression  made  upon  Tembarom  —  watching 
things  being  brought  in  and  taken  out  of  the  room,  carved  on 
a  huge  buffet,  and  passed  from  one  man  to  another;  and  when 
they  were  brought  solemnly  to  you,  if  you  turned  them  down, 
it  seemed  that  the  whole  ceremony  had  to  be  gone  through  with 
again.  Alt  sorts  of  silver  knives,  forks,  and  spoons  were 
given  to  one  and  taken  away,  and  half  a  dozen  sorts  of  glasses 
stood  by  your  plate;  and  if  you  made  a  move  to  do  anything 
for  yourself,  the  man  out  of  livery  stopped  you  as  though  you 
were  too  big  a  fool  to  be  trusted.  The  food  was  all  right, 
but  when  you  knew  what  anything  was,  and  were  inclined  to 
welcome  it  as  an  old  friend,  it  was  given  to  you  in  some  way 
that  made  you  get  rattled.  With  all  the  swell  dishes,  you  had 

128 


T.    TEMBAROM  129 

no  butter-plate,  and  ice  seemed  scarce,  and  the  dead,  still  way 
the  servants  moved  about  gave  you  a  sort  of  feeling  that  you 
were  at  a  funeral  and  that  it  was  n't  decent  to  talk  so  long  as 
the  remains  were  in  the  room.  The  head-man  and  the  foot 
men  seemed  to  get  on  by  signs,  though  Tembarom  never  saw 
them  making  any ;  and  their  faces  never  changed  for  a  moment. 
Once  or  twice  he  tried  a  joke,  addressing  it  to  Mr.  Palford,  to  see 
what  would  happen.  But  as  Mr.  Palford  did  not  seem  to  see 
the  humor  of  it,  and  gave  him  the  "glassy  eye,"  and  neither 
the  head-man  nor  the  footmen  seemed  to  hear  it,  he  thought 
that  perhaps  they  didn't  know  it  was  a  joke;  and  if  they 
didn't,  and  they  thought  anything  at  all,  they  must  think  he 
was  dippy.  The  dinner  was  a  deadly,  though  sumptuous,  meal, 
and  long  drawn  out,  when  measured  by  meals  at  Mrs.  Bowse's. 
He  did  not  know,  as  Mr.  Palford  did,  that  it  was  perfect,  and 
served  with  a  finished  dexterity  that  was  also  perfection. 

Mr.  Palford,  however,  was  himself  relieved  when  it  was  at  an 
end.  He  had  sat  at  dinner  with  the  late  Mr.  Temple  Bar- 
holm  in  his  day,  and  had  seen  him  also  served  by  the  owners 
of  impassive  countenances;  but  he  had  been  aware  that  what 
soever  of  secret  dislike  and  resentment  was  concealed  by  them, 
there  lay  behind  their  immovability  an  acceptance  of  the  fact 
that  he  represented,  even  in  his  most  objectionable  humors, 
centuries  of  accustomedness  to  respectful  service  and  of  knowl 
edge  of  his  right  and  power  to  claim  it.  The  solicitor  was 
keenly  aware  of  the  silent  comments  being  made  upon  the  tweed 
suit  and  brown  necktie  and  on  the  manner  in  which  their 
wearer  boldly  chose  the  wrong  fork  or  erroneously  made  use  of 
a  knife  or  spoon.  Later  in  the  evening,  in  the  servants'  hall, 
the  comment  would  not  be  silent,  and  there  could  be  no  doubt 
of  what  its  character  would  be.  There  would  be  laughter  and 
the  relating  of  incidents.  Housemaids  and  still-room  maids 
would  giggle,  and  kitchen-maids  and  boot-boys  would  grin  and 
whisper  in  servile  tribute  to  the  witticisms  of  the  superior 
servants. 

After  dinner  the  rest  of  the  evening  could  at  least  be  spent 
in  talk  about  business  matters.  There  still  remained  details 
to  be  enlarged  upon  before  Palford  himself  returned  to  Lincoln's 


130  T.    TEMBAROM 

Inn  and  left  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  +o  the  care  of  the  steward 
of  his  estate.  It  was  not  difficult  to  talk  to  him  when  the  sole 
subject  of  conversation  was  of  a  business  nature. 

Before  they  parted  for  the  night  the  mystery  of  the  arrange 
ments  made  for  Strangeways  had  been  cleared.  In  fact,  Mr. 
Temple  Barholm  made  no  mystery  of  them.  He  did  not  seem 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  what  he  had  chosen  to  do  was  unusual, 
but  he  did  not  appear  hampered  or  embarrassed  by  the  knowl 
edge.  His  remarks  on  the  subject  were  entirely  civil  and  were 
far  from  actually  suggesting  that  his  singular  conduct  was 
purely  his  own  business  and  none  of  his  solicitor's;  but  for  a 
moment  or  BO  Mr.  Palford  was  privately  just  a  trifle  annoyed. 
The  Hutchinsons  had  traveled  from  London  with  Strangeways 
in  their  care  the  day  before.  He  would  have  been  unhappy  and 
disturbed  if  he  had  been  obliged  to  travel  with  Mr.  Palford, 
who  was  a  stranger  to  him,  and  Miss  Hutchinson  had  a  sooth 
ing  effect  on  him.  Strangeways  was  for  the  present  com 
fortably  installed  as  a  guest  of  the  house,  Miss  Hutchinson  hav 
ing  talked  to  the  housekeeper,  Mrs.  Butterworth,  and  to  Pear 
son.  What  the  future  held  for  him  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  did 
not  seem  to  feel  the  necessity  of  going  into.  He  left  him  be 
hind  as  a  subject,  and  went  on  talking  cheerfully  of  other  things 
almost  as  if  he  had  forgotten  him. 

They  had  their  coffee  in  the  library,  and  afterward  sat  at 
the  writing-table  and  looked  over  documents  and  talked  until 
Mr.  Palford  felt  that  he  could  quite  decorously  retire  to  his 
bedroom.  He  was  glad  to  be  relieved  of  his  duties,  and  Tem- 
barom  was  amiably  resigned  to  parting  with  him. 

Tembarom  did  not  go  up-stairs  at  once  himself.  He  sat  by 
the  fire  and  smoked  several  pipes  of  tobacco  and  thought  things 
over.  There  were  a  lot  of  things  to  think  over,  and  several 
decisions  to  make,  and  he  thought  it  would  be  a  good  idea  to 
pass  them  in  review.  The  quiet  of  the  dead  surrounded  him. 
In  a  house  the  size  of  this  the  servants  were  probably  half  a  mile 
away.  They  'd  need  trolleys  to  get  to  one,  he  thought,  if  you 
rang  for  them  in  a  hurry.  If  an  armed  burglar  made  a  quiet 
entry  without  your  knowing  it,  he  could  get  in  some  pretty 
rough  work  before  any  of  the  seventy-five  footmen  could  come 


T.    TEMBAEOM  131 

to  lend  a  hand.  He  was  not  aware  that  there  were  two  of 
them  standing  in  waiting  in  the  hall,  their  powdered  heads 
close  together,  so  that  their  whispers  and  chuckles  could  be 
heard.  A  sound  of  movement  in  the  library  would  have 
brought  them  up  standing  to  a  decorous  attitude  of  attention 
conveying  to  the  uninitiated  the  impression  that  they  had  not 
moved  for  hours. 

Sometimes  as  he  sat  in  the  big  morocco  chair,  T.  Tembarom 
looked  grave  enough;  sometimes  he  looked  as  though  he  was 
confronting  problems  which  needed  puzzling  out  and  with 
which  he  was  not  making  much  headway;  sometimes  he  looked 
as  though  he  was  thinking  of  little  Ann  Hutchinson,  and  not 
infrequently  he  grinned.  Here  he  was  up  to  the  neck  in  it, 
and  he  was  darned  if  he  knew  what  he  was  going  to  do.  He 
didn't  know  a  soul,  and  nobody  knew  him.  He  didn't  know 
a  thing  he  ought  to  know,  and  he  didn't  know  any  one  who 
could  tell  him.  Even  the  Hutchinsons  had  never  been  inside 
a  place  like  Temple  Barholm,  and  they  were  going  back  to 
Manchester  after  a  few  weeks'  stay  at  the  grandmother's  cot 
tage. 

Before  he  had  left  New  York  he  had  seen  Hadman  and  some 
other  fellows  and  got  things  started,  so  that  there  was  an  even 
chance  that  the  invention  would  be  put  on  its  feet.  He  had 
worked  hard  and  used  his  own  power  to  control  money  in  the 
future  as  a  lever  which  had  proved  to  be  exactly  what  was 
needed. 

Hadman  had  been  spurred  and  a  little  startled  when  he  real 
ized  the  magnitude  of  what  really  could  be  done,  and  saw  also 
that  this  slangy,  moneyed  youth  was  not  merely  an  enthusiastic 
fool,  but  saw  into  business  schemes  pretty  sharply  and  was  of 
a  most  determined  readiness.  With  this  power  ranging  itself 
on  the  side  of  Hutchinson  and  his  invention,  it  was  good 
business  to  begin  to  move,  if  one  did  not  want  to  run  a  chance 
of  being  left  out  in  the  cold. 

Hutchinson  had  gone  to  Manchester,  and  there  had  been 
barely  time  for  a  brief  but  characteristic  interview  between  him 
and  Tembarom,  when  he  rushed  back  to  London.  Tembarom 
felt  rather  excited  when  he  remembered  it,  recalling  what  he 


132  T.   TEMBAROM 

had  felt  in  confronting  the  struggles  against  emotion  in  the 
blunt-featured,  red  face,  the  breaks  in  the  rough  voice,  the 
charging  up  and  down  the  room  like  a  curiously  elated  bull  in 
a  china  shop,  and  the  big  effort  to  restrain  relief  and  grati 
tude  the  degree  of  which  might  seem  to  under-value  the  merits 
of  the  invention  itself. 

Once  or  twice  when  he  looked  serious,  Tembarom  was  think 
ing  this  over,  and  also  once  or  twice  when  he  grinned.  Re 
lief  and  gratitude  notwithstanding,  Hutchinson  had  kept  him 
in  his  place,  and  had  not  made  unbounded  efforts  to  conceal  his 
sense  of  the  incongruity  of  his  position  as  the  controller  of 
fortunes  and  the  lord  of  Temple  Barholm,  which  was  still 
vaguely  flavored  with  indignation. 

When  he  had  finished  his  last  pipe,  Tembarom  rose  and 
knocked  the  ashes  out  of  it. 

"  Now  for  Pearson,"  he  said. 

He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  have  a  talk  with  Pearson,  and 
there  was  no  use  wasting  time.  If  things  did  n't  suit  you,  the 
best  thing  was  to  see  what  you  could  do  to  fix  them  right  away 
—  if  it  was  n't  against  the  law.  He  went  out  into  the  hall,  and 
seeing  the  two  footmen  standing  waiting,  he  spoke  to  them. 

"  Say,  I  did  n't  know  you  fellows  were  there,"  he  said.  "  Are 
you  waiting  up  for  me  ?  Well,  you  can  go  to  bed,  the  sooner  the 
quicker.  Good  night."  And  he  went  up-stairs  whistling. 

The  glow  and  richness  and  ceremonial  order  of  preparation 
in  his  bedroom  struck  him  •  as  soon  as  he  opened  the  door. 
Everything  which  could  possibly  have  been  made  ready  for 
his  most  luxurious  comfort  had  been  made  ready.  He  did  not, 
it  is  true,  care  much  for  the  huge  bed  with  its  carved  oak 
canopy  and  massive  pillars. 

"But  the  lying-down  part  looks  about  all  right,"  he  said  to 
himself. 

The  fine  linen,  the  soft  pillows,  the  downy  blankets,  would 
have  allured  even  a  man  who  was  not  tired.  The  covering 
had  been  neatly  turned  back  and  the  snowy  whiteness  opened. 
That  was  English,  he  supposed.  They  hadn't  got  on  to  that 
at  Mrs.  Bowse's. 

"  But  I  guess  a  plain  little  old  New  York  sleep  will  do,"  he 


T.   TEMBAROM  133 

said.  "  Temple  Barholm  or  no  Temple  Barholm,  I  guess  they 
can't  change  that." 

Then  there  sounded  a  quiet  knock  at  the  door.  He  knew  who 
it  would  turn  out  to  be,  and  he  was  not  mistaken.  Pearson 
stood  in  the  corridor,  wearing  his  slightly  anxious  expression, 
but  ready  for  orders. 

Mr.  Temple  Barholm  looked  down  at  him  with  a  friendly,  if 
unusual,  air. 

"  Say,  Pearson,"  he  announced,  "  if  you  've  come  to  wash  my 
face  and  put  my  hair  up  in  crimping-pins,  you  need  n't  do  it, 
because  I  'm  not  used  to  it.  But  come  on  in." 

If  he  had  told  Pearson  to  enter  and  climb  the  chimney,  it 
cannot  be  said  that  the  order  would  have  been  obeyed  upon  the 
spot,  but  Pearson  would  certainly  have  hesitated  and  explained 
with  respectful  delicacy  the  fact  that  the  task  was  not  "his 
place."  He  came  into  the  room. 

"  I  came  to  see,  if  I  could  do  anything  further  and  — "  mak 
ing  a  courageous  onslaught  upon  the  situation  for  which  he 
had  been  preparing  himself  for  hours  — "  and  also  —  if  it  is  not 
too  late  —  to  venture  to  trouble  you  with  regard  to  your  ward 
robe."  He  coughed  a  low,  embarrassed  cough.  "  In  unpack 
ing,  sir,  I  found  —  I  did  not  find  — " 

"  You  did  n't  find  much,  did  you  ?  "  Tembarom  assisted  him. 

"  Of  course,  sir,"  Pearson  apologized,  "  leaving  New  York 
so  hurriedly,  your  —  your  man  evidently  had  not  time  to  — 
er— " 

Tembarom  looked  at  him  a  few  seconds  longer,  as  if  making 
up  his  mind  to  something.  Then  he  threw  himself  easily  into 
the  big  chair  by  the  fire,  and  leaned  back  in  it  with  the  frank 
est  and  best-natured  smile  possible. 

"  I  had  n't  any  man,"  he  said.  "  Say,  Pearson,"  waving  his 
hand  to  another  chair  near  by,  "  suppose  you  take  a  seat." 

Long  and  careful  training  came  to  Pearson's  aid  and  sup 
ported  him,  but  he  was  afraid  that  he  looked  nervous,  and 
certainly  there  was  a  lack  of  entire  calm  in  his  voice. 

"I  —  thank  you,  sir, —  I  think  I  'd  better  stand,  sir." 

"  Why  ?  "  inquired  Tembarom,  taking  his  tobacco-pouch  out 
of  his  pocket  and  preparing  to  fill  another  pipe. 


134  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  You  're  most  kind,  sir,  but  —  but  — "  in  impassioned  em 
barrassment  — "  I  should  really  prefer  to  stand,  sir,  if  you  don't 
mind.  I  should  feel  more  —  more  at  'ome,  sir,"  he  added, 
dropping  an  h  in  his  agitation. 

"  Well,  if  you  'd  like  it  better,  that 's  all  right,"  yielded  Mr. 
Temple  Barholm,  stuffing  tobacco  into  the  pipe.  Pearson 
darted  to  a  table,  produced  a  match,  struck  it,  and  gave  it  to 
him. 

"Thank  you,"  said  Tembarom,  still  good-naturedly.  "But 
there  are  a  few  things  I  've  got  to  say  to  you  right  now." 

Pearson  had  really  done  his  best,  his  very  best,  but  he  was 
terrified  because  of  the  certain  circumstances  once  before 
referred  to. 

"  I  beg  pardon,  sir,"  he  appealed,  "  but  I  am  most  anxious  to 
give  satisfaction  in  every  respect."  He  was,  poor  young  man, 
horribly  anxious.  "  To-day  being  only  the  first  day,  I  dare 
say  I  have  not  been  all  I  should  have  been.  I  have  never 
valeted  an  American  gentleman  before,  but  I  'm  sure  I  shall 
become  accustomed  to  everything  quite  soon  —  almost  imme 
diately." 

"  Say,"  broke  in  Tembarom,  "  you  're  'way  off.  I  'm  not 
complaining.  You're  all  right." 

The  easy  good  temper  of  his  manner  was  so  singularly  assur 
ing  that  Pearson,  unexplainable  as  he  found  him  in  every  other 
respect,  knew  that  this  at  least  was  to  be  depended  upon,  and 
he  drew  an  almost  palpable  breath  of  relief.  Something  ac 
tually  allured  him  into  approaching  what  he  had  never  felt  it 
safe  to  approach  before  under  like  circumstances  —  a  confidential 
disclosure. 

"  Thank  you,  sir :  I  am  most  grateful.  The  —  fact  is,  I 
hoped  especially  to  be  able  to  settle  in  place  just  now.  I  —  I  'm 
hoping  to  save  up  enough  to  get  married,  sir." 

"You  are?"  Tembarom  exclaimed.  "Good  business!  So 
was  I  before  all  this  " —  he  glanced  about  him  — "  fell  on  top  of 
me." 

"I've  been  saving  for  three  years,  sir,  and  if  I  can  know 
I  'm  a  permanency  —  if  I  can  keep  this  place  — " 

"You're  going  to  keep  it  all  right/'  Tembarom  cheered  him 


T.    TEMBAEOM  135 

up  with.  "  If  you  've  got  an  idea  you  're  going  to  be  fired, 
just  you  forget  it.  Cut  it  right  out." 

"Is  —  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,"  Pearson  asked  with  timorous 
joy,  "  but  is  that  the  American  for  saying  you  '11  be  good  enough 
to  keep  me  on?" 

Mr.  Temple  Barholm  thought  a  second. 

"  Is  '  keep  me  on '  the  English  for  e  let  me  stay '  ?  " 

"Yes,  sir." 

"  Then  we  're  all  right.  Let 's  start  from  there.  I  'm  going 
to  have  a  heart-to-heart  talk  with  you,  Pearson." 

"Thank  you,  sir,"  said  Pearson  in  a  deferential  murmur. 
But  if  he  was  not  dissatisfied,  what  was  going  to  happen  ? 

"  It  '11  save  us  both  trouble,  and  me  most.  I  'm  not  one  of 
those  clever  Clarences  that  can  keep  up  a  bluff,  making  out  I 
know  things  I  don't  know.  I  could  n't  deceive  a  setting  hen 
or  a  Berlin  wool  antimacassar." 

Pearson  swallowed  something  with  effort. 

"  You  see,  I  fell  into  this  thing  kerchunk,  and  I  'm  just 
rattled  —  I  'm  rattled."  As  Pearson  slightly  coughed  again, 
he  translated  for  him,  "  That 's  American  for  '  I  don't  know 
where  I  'm  at.' " 

"  Those  American  jokes,  sir,  are  very  funny  indeed,"  an 
swered  Pearson,  appreciatively. 

"  Funny ! "  the  new  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  exclaimed  even 
aggrievedly.  "  If  you  think  this  lay-out  is  an  American  joke 
to  me,  Pearson,  there  's  where  you  're  'way  off.  Do  you  think 
it  a  merry  jest  for  a  fellow  like  me  to  sit  up  in  a  high  chair 
in  a  dining-room  like  a  cathedral  and  not  know  whether  he 
ought  to  bite  his  own  bread  or  not?  And  not  dare  to  stir  till 
things  are  handed  to  him  by  five  husky  footmen?  I  thought 
that  plain-clothes  man  was  going  to  cut  up  my  meat,  and  slap 
me  on  the  back  if  I  choked." 

Pearson's  sense  of  humor  was  perhaps  not  inordinate,  but 
unseemly  mirth,  which  he  had  swallowed  at  the  reference  to  the 
setting  hen  and  the  Berlin  wool  antimacassar,  momentarily  got 
the  better  of  him,  despite  his  efforts  to  cough  it  down,  and 
broke  forth  in  a  hoarse,  ill-repressed  sound. 

"  I  beg  pardon,  sir,"  he  said  with  a  laudable  endeavor  to 


136  T.    TEMBAROM 

recover  his  professional  bearing.     "It's  your  —  American  way 
of  expressing  it  which  makes  me  forget  myself.     I  beg  pardon/' 

Tembarom  laughed  outright  boyishly. 

"  Oh,  cut  that  out/'  he  said.     "  Say,  how  old  are  you  ?  " 

"Twenty-five,   sir." 

"  So  am  I.  If  you  'd  met  me  three  months  ago,  beating  the 
streets  of  New  York  for  a  living,  with  holes  in  my  shoes  and  a 
celluloid  collar  on,  you  'd  have  looked  down  on  me.  I  know  you 
would." 

"  Oh,  no,  sir/'  most  falsely  insisted  Pearson. 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  would,"  protested  Tembarom,  cheerfully. 
"  You'd  have  said  I  talked  through  my  nose,  and  1  should  have 
laughed  at  you  for  dropping  your  h's.  Now  you  're  rattled 
because  I  'm  Mr.  Temple  Temple  Barholm ;  but  you  're  not 
half  as  rattled  as  I  am." 

"  You  '11  get  over  it,  sir,  almost  immediately,"  Pearson  as 
sured  him,  hopefully. 

"  Of  course  I  shall,"  said  Tembarom,  with  much  courage. 
"  But  to  start  right  I  've  got  to  get  over  you." 

"  Me,  sir  ?  "  Pearson  breathed  anxiously. 

"  Yes.  That 's  what  I  want  to  get  off  my  chest.  Now,  first 
off,  you  came  in  here  to  try  to  explain  to  me  that,  owing  to 
my  New  York  valet  having  left  my  New  York  wardrobe  be 
hind,  I  've  not  got  anything  to  wear,  and  so  I  shall  have  to 
buy  some  clothes." 

"I  failed  to  find  any  dress-shirts,  sir,"  began  Pearson,  hesi 
tatingly. 

Mr.  Temple  Barholm  grinned. 

"  I  always  failed  to  find  them  myself.  I  never  had  a  dress- 
shirt.  I  never  owned  a  suit  of  glad  rags  in  my  life." 

"  Gl  —  glad  rags,  sir  ?  "  stammered  Pearson,  uncertainly. 

"  I  knew  you  did  n't  catch  on  when  I  said  that  to  you  before 
dinner.  I  mean  claw-hammer  and  dress-suit  things.  Don't 
you  be  frightened,  Pearson.  I  never  had  six  good  shirts  at 
once,  or  two  pair  of  shoes,  or  more  than  four  ten-cent  handker 
chiefs  at  a  time  since  I  was  born.  And  when  Mr.  Palford 
yanked  me  away  from  New  York,  he  did  n't  suspect  a  fellow 
could  be  in  such  a  state.  And  I  did  n't  know  I  was  in  a  state, 


T.    TEMBAEOM  137 

anyhow.  I  was  too  busy  to  hunt  up  people  to  tell  me,  because 
I  was  rushing  something  important  right  through,  and  I 
could  n't  stop.  I  just  bought  the  first  things  I  set  eyes  on  and 
crammed  them  into  my  trunk.  There,  I  guess  you  know  the 
most  of  this,  but  you  did  n't  know  I  knew  you  knew  it.  Now 
you  do,  and  you  need  n't  be  afraid  to  hurt  my  feelings  by  tell 
ing  me  I  have  n't  a  darned  thing  I  ought  to  have.  You  can 
go  straight  ahead." 

As  he  leaned  back,  puffing  away  at  his  pipe,  he  had  thrown 
a  leg  over  the  arm  of  his  chair  for  greater  comfort,  and  it  really 
struck  his  valet  that  he  had  never  seen  a  gentleman  more  at  his 
ease,  even  one  who  was  one.  His  casual  candidness  produced 
such  a  relief  from  the  sense  of  strain  and  uncertainty  that  Pear 
son  felt  the  color  returning  to  his  face.  An  opening  had  been 
given  him,  and  it  was  possible  for  him  to  do  his  duty. 

"If  you  wish,  sir,  I  will  make  a  list,"  he  ventured  further, 
"  and  the  proper  firms  will  send  persons  to  bring  things  down 
from  London  on  appro." 

"  What 's  '  appro '  the  English  for  ?  " 

"  Approval,  sir." 

"  Good  business  !     Good  old  Pearson !  " 

"  Thank  you,  sir.  Shall  I  attend  to  it  to-night,  to  be  ready 
for  the  morning  post  ?  " 

"  In  five  minutes  you  shall.  But  you  threw  me  off  the  track 
a  bit.  The  thing  I  was  really  going  to  say  was  more  important 
than  the  clothes  business." 

There  was  something  else,  then,  thought  Pearson,  some  other 
unexpected  point  of  view. 

"  What  have  you  to  do  for  me,  anyhow  ?  " 

"  Valet  you,  sir." 

"  That 's  English  for  washing  my  face  and  combing  my 
hair  and  putting  my  socks  on,  ain't  it  ?  " 

"  Well,  sir,  it  means  doing  all  you  require,  and  being  always 
in  attendance  when  you  change." 

"  How  much  do  you  get  for  it  ?  " 

"  Thirty  shillings  a  week,  sir." 

"  Say,  Pearson,"  said  Tembarom,  with  honest  feeling,  "  I  '11 
give  you  sixty  shillings  a  week  not  to  do  it." 


138  T.    TEMBAEOM 

Calmed  though  he  had  felt  a  few  moments  ago,  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  Pearson  was  aghast.  How  could  one  be  prepared 
for  developments  of  such  an  order? 

"Not  to  do  it,  sir!"  he  faltered.  "But  what  would  the 
servants  think  if  you  had  no  one  to  valet  you  ?  " 

"That's  so.  What  would  they  think?"  But  he  evidently 
was  not  dismayed,  for  he  smiled  widely.  "  I  guess  the  plain- 
clothes  man  would  throw  a  fit." 

But  Pearson's  view  was  more  serious  and  involved  a  knowl 
edge  of  not  improbable  complications.  He  knew  "  the  hall " 
and  its  points  of  view. 

"I  couldn't  draw  my  wages,  sir,"  he  protested.  " There 'd 
be  the  greatest  dissatisfaction  among  the  other  servants,  sir,  if 
I  did  n't  do  my  duties.  There  's  always  a  —  a  slight  jealousy 
of  valets  and  ladies'-maids.  The  general  idea  is  that  they 
do  very  little  to  earn  their  salaries.  I  've  seen  them  fairly 
hated." 

"Is  that  so?  Well,  I'll  be  darned!"  remarked  Mr.  Temple 
Barholm.  He  gave  a  moment  to  reflection,  and  then  cheered 
up  immensely. 

"  I  '11  tell  you  how  we  '11  fix  it.  You  come  up  into  my  room 
and  bring  your  tatting  or  read  a  newspaper  while  I  dress."  He 
openly  chuckled.  "  Holy  smoke !  I  've  got  to  put  on  my  shirt 
and  swear  at  my  collar-buttons  myself.  If  I  'm  in  for  having 
a  trained  nurse  do  it  for  me,  it  '11  give  me  the  Willies.  When 
you  danced  around  me  before  dinner  — " 

Pearson's  horror  forced  him  to  commit  the  indiscretion  of 
interrupting. 

"I  hope  I  didn't  dance,  sir,"  he  implored.  "I  tried  to  be 
extremely  quiet." 

"  That  was  it,"  said  Tembarom.  "  I  should  n't  have  said 
danced ;  I  meant  crept.  I  kept  thinking  I  should  tread  on  you, 
and  I  got  so  nervous  toward  the  end  I  thought  I  should  just 
break  down  and  sob  on  your  bosom  and  beg  to  be  taken  back 
to  home  and  mother." 

"  I  'm  extremely  sorry,  sir,  I  am,  indeed,"  apologized  Pear 
son,  doing  his  best  not  to  give  way  to  hysterical  giggling.  How 


T.    TEMBAEOM  139 

was  a  man  to  keep  a  decently  straight  face,  and  if  one  did  n't, 
where  would  it  end?  One  thing  after  another. 

"  It  was  not  your  fault.  It  was  mine.  I  have  n't  a  thing 
against  you.  You  're  a  first-rate  little  chap." 

"  I  will  try  to  be  more  satisfactory  to-morrow." 

There  must  be  no  laughing  aloud,  even  if  one  burst  a  blood 
vessel.  It  would  not  do.  Pearson  hastily  confronted  a  vision 
of  a  young  footman  or  Mr.  Burrill  himself  passing  through 
the  corridors  on  some  errand  and  hearing  master  and  valet 
shouting  together  in  unseemly  and  wholly  incomprehensible 
mirth.  And  the  next  remark  was  worse  than  ever. 

"  No,  you  won't,  Pearson,"  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  asserted. 
"  There 's  where  you  're  wrong.  I  've  got  no  more  use  for  a 
valet  than  I  have  for  a  pair  of  straight-front  corsets." 

This  contained  a  sobering  suggestion. 

"  But  you  said,  sir,  that  — " 

"  Oh,  I  'm  not  going  to  fire  you,"  said  Tembarom,  genially. 
"  I  '11  '  keep  you  on,'  but  little  Willie  is  going  to  put  on  his 
own  socks.  If  the  servants  have  to  be  pacified,  you  come  up  to 
my  room  and  do  anything  you  like.  Lie  on  the  bed  if  you 
want  to;  get  a  jew's-harp  and  play  on  it  —  any  old  thing  to 
pass  the  time.  And  I  '11  raise  your  wages.  What  do  you  say  ? 
Is  it  fixed?" 

"  I  'm  here,  sir,  to  do  anything  you  require,"  Pearson  an 
swered  distressedly ;  "  but  I  'm  afraid  — " 

Tembarom's  face  changed.  A  sudden  thought  had  struck 
him. 

"  I  '11  tell  you  one  thing  you  can  do,"  he  said ;  "  you  can 
valet  that  friend  of  mine." 

"  Mr.  Strangeways,  sir  ?  " 

u  Yes.  I  've  got  a  notion  he  would  n't  mind  it."  He  was 
not  joking  now.  He  was  in  fact  rather  suddenly  thoughtful. 

"  Say,  Pearson,  what  do  you  think  of  him  ?  " 

"  Well,  sir,  I  've  not  seen  much  of  him,  and  he  says  very 
little,  but  I  should  think  he  was  a  gentleman,  sir." 

Mr.  Temple  Barholm  seemed  to  think  it  over. 

"That's   queer,"  he   said  as  though  to  himself.     "That's 


140  T.    TEMBAEOM 

what  Ann  said."     Then  aloud,  "Would  you  say  he  was  an 
American  ?  " 

In  his  unavoidable  interest  in  a  matter  much  talked  over 
below  stairs  and  productive  of  great  curiosity  Pearson  was  be 
trayed.  He  could  not  explain  to  himself,  after  he  had  spoken, 
how  he  could  have  been  such  a  fool  as  to  forget;  but  forget 
himself  and  the  birthplace  of  the  new  Mr.  Temple  Barholm 
he  did. 

"  Oh,  no,  sir,"  he  exclaimed  hastily ;  "  he 's  quite  the  gentle 
man,  sir,  even  though  he  is  queer  in  his  mind."  The  next 
instant  he  caught  himself  and  turned  cold.  An  American  or 
a  Frenchman  or  an  Italian,  in  fact,  a  native  of  any  country 
on  earth  so  slighted  with  an  unconsciousness  so  natural,  if  he 
had  been  a  man  of  hot  temper,  might  have  thrown  something 
at  him  or  kicked  him  out  of  the  room;  but  Mr.  Temple  Bar- 
holm  took  his  pipe  out  of  his  mouth  and  looked  at  him  with  a 
slow,  broadening  smile. 

"  Would  you  call  me  a  gentleman,  Pearson  ?  "  he  asked. 

Of  course  there  was  no  retrieving  such  a  blunder,  Pearson 
felt,  but  — 

"  Certainly,  sir,"  he  stammered.  "  Most  —  most  certainly, 
sir." 

"  Pearson,"  said  Tembarom,  shaking  his  head  slowly,  with 
a  grin  so  good-natured  that  even  the  frankness  of  his  words 
was  friendly  humor  itself  — "  Pearson,  you  're  a  liar.  But  that 
does  n't  jolt  me  a  bit.  I  dare  say  I  'm  not  one,  anyhow.  We 
might  put  an  '  ad '  in  one  of  your  papers  and  find  out." 

"I  —  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,"  murmured  Pearson  in  actual 
anguish  of  mind. 

Mr.  Temple  Barholm  laughed  outright. 

"  Oh,  I  've  not  got  it  in  for  you.  How  could  you  help  it  ?  " 
he  said.  Then  he  stopped  joking  again.  "  If  you  want  to 
please  me"  he  added  with  deliberation,  "you  look  after  Mr. 
Strangeways,  and  don't  let  anything  disturb  him.  Don't  bother 
him,  but  just  find  out  what  he  wants.  When  he  gets  restless,  come 
and  tell  me.  If  I  'm  out,  tell  him  I  'm  coming  back.  Don't 
let  him  worry.  You  understand  —  don't  let  him  worry." 

"  I  '11  do  my  best  —  my  very  best,  sir,"   Pearson  answered 


T.   TEMBAROM  141 

devoutly.  "  I  've  been  nervous  and  excited  this  first  day  be 
cause  I  am  so  anxious  to  please  —  everything  seems  to  depend 
on  it  just  now,"  he  added,  daring  another  confidential  out 
burst.  "  But  you  '11  see  I  do  know  how  to  keep  my  wits  about 
me  in  general,  and  I  've  got  a  good  memory,  and  I  have  learned 
my  duties,  sir.  I  '11  attend  to  Mr.  Strangeways  most  particu 
lar." 

As  Tembarom  listened,  and  watched  his  neat,  blond  coun 
tenance,  and  noted  the  undertone  of  quite  desperate  appeal  in 
his  low  voice,  he  was  thinking  of  a  number  of  things.  Chiefly 
he  was  thinking  of  little  Ann  Hutchinson  and  the  Har 
lem  flat  which  might  have  been  "run"  on  fifteen  dollars  a 
week. 

"  I  want  to  know  I  have  some  one  in  this  museum  of  a  place 
who  '11  understand,"  he  said  — "  some  one  who  '11  do  just  ex 
actly  what  I  say  and  ask  no  fool  questions  and  keep  his  mouth 
shut.  I  believe  you  could  do  it." 

"  I  '11  swear  I  could,  sir.  Trust  me,"  was  Pearson's  aston 
ishingly  emotional  and  hasty  answer. 

"  I  'm  going  to,"  returned  Mr.  Temple  Barholm.  "  I  've 
set  my  mind  on  putting  something  through  in  my  own  way. 
It's  a  queer  thing,  and  most  people  would  say  I  was  a  fool 
for  trying  it.  Mr.  Hutchinson  does,  but  Miss  Hutchinson 
does  n't." 

There  was  a  note  in  his  tone  of  saying  "  Miss  Hutchinson 
does  n't "  which  opened  up  vistas  to  Pearson  —  strange  vistas 
when  one  thought  of  old  Mrs.  Hutchinson's  cottage  and  the  es 
tate  of  Temple  Barholm. 

"We're  just  about  the  same  age,"  his  employer  continued, 
"  and  in  a  sort  of  way  we  're  in  just  about  the  same  fix." 

Their  eyes  looked  into  each  other's  a  second;  but  it  was  not 
for  Pearson  to  presume  to  make  any  comment  whatsoever  upon 
the  possible  nature  of  "the  fix."  Two  or  three  more  puffs, 
and  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  spoke  again. 

"  Say,  Pearson,  I  don't  want  to  butt  in,  but  what  about  that 
little  bunch  of  calico  of  yours  —  the  one  you're  saving  up 
for?" 

"  Calico,  sir  ?  "  said  Pearson,  at  sea,  but  hopeful.     Whatso- 


142  T.    TEMBAEOM 

ever  the  new  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  meant,  one  began  to  realize 
that  it  was  not  likely  to  be  unfriendly. 

"That's  American  for  her,  Pearson.  'Her'  stands  for  the 
same  thing  both  in  English  and  American,  I  guess.  What's 
her  name  and  where  is  she  ?  Don't  you  say  a  word  if  you  don't 
want  to." 

Pearson  drew  a  step  nearer.  There  was  an  extraordinary 
human  atmosphere  in  the  room  which  caused  things  to  begin  to 
go  on  in  his  breast.  He  had  had  a  harder  life  than  Tembarom  be- 
because  he  had  been  more  timid  and  less  buoyant  and  less  unself- 
conscious.  He  had  been  beaten  by  a  drunken  mother  and  kicked 
by  a  drunken  father.  He  had  gone  hungry  and  faint  to  the 
board  school  and  had  been  punished  as  a  dull  boy.  After  he 
had  struggled  into  a  place  as  page,  he  had  been  bullied  by  foot 
men  and  had  had  his  ears  boxed  by  cooks  and  butlers.  Ladies'- 
maids  and  smart  housemaids  had  sneered  at  him,  and  made 
him  feel  himself  a  hopeless,  vulgar  little  worm  who  never  would 
"  get  on."  But  he  had  got  on,  in  a  measure,  because  he  had 
worked  like  a  slave  and  openly  resented  nothing.  A  place  like 
this  had  been  his  fevered  hope  and  dream  from  his  page  days, 
though  of  course  his  imagination  had  not  encompassed  attend 
ance  on  a  gentleman  who  had  never  owned  a  dress-shirt  in  his 
life.  Yet  gentleman  or  no  gentleman,  he  was  a  Temple  Bar- 
holm,  and  there  was  something  about  him,  something  human 
in  his  young  voice  and  grin  and  queer,  unheard-of  New  York 
jokes,  which  Pearson  had  never  encountered,  and  which  had 
the  effect  of  making  him  feel  somehow  more  of  a  man  than 
his  timorous  nature  had  ever  allowed  of  his  feeling  before.  It 
suggested  that  they  were  both,  valet  and  master,  merely  mascu 
line  human  creatures  of  like  kind.  The  way  he  had  said  "  Miss 
Hutchinson  "  and  the  twinkle  in  his  eye  when  he  'd  made  that 
American  joke  about  the  "little  bunch  of  calico"!  The  cu 
rious  fact  was  that  thin,  neat,  white-blooded-looking  Pearson 
was  passionately  in  love.  So  he  took  the  step  nearer  and 
grew  hot  and  spoke  low. 

"  Her  name  is  Rose  Merrick,  sir,  and  she 's  in  place  in 
London.  She's  lady's-maid  to  a  lady  of  title,  and  it  isn't 
an  easy  place.  Her  lady  has  a  high  temper,  and  she's  eco- 


T.    TEMBAROM  143 

nomical  with  her  servants.  Her  maid  has  to  sew  early  and  late, 
and  turn  out  as  much  as  if  she  was  a  whole  dressmaking  es 
tablishment.  She 's  clever  with  her  needle,  and  it  would  be 
easier  if  she  felt  it  was  appr3ciated.  But  she  's  treated  haughty 
and  severe,  though  she  tries  her  very  best.  She  has  to  wait 
up  half  the  night  after  balls,  and  I  'm  afraid  it 's  breaking  her 
spirit  and  her  health.  That 's  why, —  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir," 
he  added,  his  voice  shaking  — "  that 's  why  I  'd  bear  anything 
on  earth  if  I  could  give  her  a  little  home  of  her  own." 

"  Gee  whizz !  "  ejaculated  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,  with  feeling. 
"  I  guess  you  would !  " 

"  And  that 's  not  all,  sir,"  said  Pearson.  "  She  's  a  beauti 
ful  girl,  sir,  with  a  figure,  and  service  is  sometimes  not  easy 
for  a  young  woman  like  that.  His  lordship  —  the  master  of 
the  house,  sir, —  is  much  too  attentive.  He  's  a  man  with  bad 
habits;  the  last  lady's-maid  was  sent  away  in  disgrace.  Her 
ladyship  wouldn't  believe  she  hadn't  been  forward  when  she 
saw  things  she  did  n't  like,  though  every  one  in  the  hall  knew 
the  girl  hated  his  bold  ways  with  her,  and  her  mother  nearly 
broke  her  heart.  He 's  begun  with  Rose,  and  it  just  drives 
me  mad,  sir,  it  does !  " 

He  choked,  and  wiped  his  forehead  with  his  clean  handker 
chief.  It  was  damp,  and  his  young  eyes  had  fire  in  them,  as 
Mr.  Temple  Barholm  did  not  fail  to  observe. 

"  I  'm  taking  a  liberty  talking  to  you  like  this,  sir,"  he  said. 
"  I  'm  behaving  as  if  I  did  n't  know  my  place,  sir." 

"Your  place  is  behind  that  fellow,  kicking  him  till  he'll 
never  sit  down  again  except  on  eider-down  cushions  three 
deep,"  remarked  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,  with  fire  in  his  eyes 
also.  "  That 's  where  your  place  is.  It 's  where  mine  would 
be  if  I  was  in  the  same  house  with  him  and  caught  him  making 
a  goat  of  himself.  I  bet  nine  Englishmen  out  of  ten  would 
break  his  darned  neck  for  him  if  they  got  on  to  his  little  ways, 
even  if  they  were  lordships  themselves." 

"  The  decent  ones  won't  know,"  Pearson  said.  "  That 's  not 
what  happens,  sir.  He  can  laugh  and  chaff  it  off  with  her 
ladyship  and  coax  her  round.  But  a  girl  that 's  discharged  like 
that,  Rose  says,  that's  the  worst  of  it:  she  says  she's  got  a 


144  T.    TEMBAKOM 

character  fastened  on  to  her  for  life  that  no  respectable  man 
ought  to  marry  her  with." 

Mr.  Temple  Barholm  removed  his  leg  from  the  arm  of  his 
chair  and  got  up.  Long-legged,  sinewy,  but  somewhat  slouchy 
in  his  badly  made  tweed  suit,  sharp  New  York  face  and  awful 
American  style  notwithstanding,  he  still  looked  rather  nice  as 
he  laid  his  hand  on  his  valet's  shoulder  and  gave  him  a  friendly 
push. 

"  See  here,"  he  said.  "  What  you  've  got  to  say  to  Eose  is 
that  she 's  just  got  to  cut  that  sort  of  thing  out  —  cut  it  right  out. 
Talking  to  a  man  that 's  in  love  with  her  as  if  he  was  likely  to 
throw  her  down  because  lies  were  told.  Tell  her  to  forget  it 
—  forget  it  quick.  Why,  what  does  she  suppose  a  man's  for, 
by  jinks  ?  What 's  he  for  ?  " 

"  I  've  told  her  that,  sir,  though  of  course  not  in  American. 
I  just  swore  it  on  my  knees  in  Hyde  Park  one  night  when 
she  got  out  for  an  hour.  But  she  laid  her  poor  head  on  the 
back  of  the  bench  and  cried  and  wouldn't  listen.  She  says 
she  cares  for  me  too  much  to — " 

Tembarom's  hand  clutched  his  shoulder.  His  face  lighted 
and  glowed  suddenly. 

"  Care  for  you  too  much/'  he  asked.  "  Did  she  say  that  ? 
God  bless  her ! " 

"  That 's  what  I  said,"  broke  in  Pearson. 

"I  heard  another  girl  say  that  —  just  before  I  left  New 
York  —  a  girl  that 's  just  a  wonder,"  said  his  master.  "  A 
girl  can  be  a  wonder,  can't  she  ?  " 

"  Eose  is,  sir,"  protested  Pearson.  "  She  is,  indeed,  sir. 
And  her  eyes  are  that  blue  — " 

"  Blue,  are  they  ? "  interrupted  Tembarom.  "  I  know  the 
kind.  I  'm  on  to  the  whole  thing.  And  what 's  more,  I  'm 
going  to  fix  it.  You  tell  Eose  —  and  tell  her  from  me  —  that 
she 's  going  to  leave  that  place,  and  you  're  going  to  stay  in  this 
one,  and  —  well,  presently  things  '11  begin  to  happen.  They  're 
going  to  be  all  right  —  all  right,"  he  went  on,  with  immensely 
convincing  emphasis.  "  She  's  going  to  have  that  little  home 
of  her  own."  He  paused  a  moment  for  reflection,  and  then 
a  sudden  thought  presented  itself  to  him.  "  Why,  darn  it ! " 


T.    TEMBAROM  145 

he  exclaimed,  "  there  must  be  a  whole  raft  of  little  homes  that 
belong  to  me  in  one  place  or  another.  Why  could  n't  I  fix  you 
both  up' in  one  of  them?" 

"  Oh,  sir ! "  Pearson  broke  forth  in  some  slight  alarm.  He 
went  so  fast  and  so  far  all  in  a  moment.  And  Pearson 
really  possessed  a  neat,  well-ordered  conscience,  and,  moreover, 
"  knew  his  place."  "  I  hope  I  did  n't  seem  to  be  expecting 
you  to  trouble  yourself  about  me,  sir.  I  mustn't  presume  on 
your  kindness." 

"  It 's  not  kindness ;  it 's  —  well,  it  's  just  human.  I  'm 
going  to  think  this  thing  over.  You  just  keep  your  hair  on, 
and  let  me  do  my  own  valeting,  and  you  '11  see  I  '11  fix  it  for 
you  somehow." 

What  he  thought  of  doing,  how  he  thought  of  doing  it,  and 
what  Pearson  was  to  expect,  the  agitated  young  man  did  not 
know.  The  situation  was  of  course  abnormal,  judged  by  all 
respectable,  long-established  custom.  A  man's  valet  and  his 
valet's  "  young  woman  "  were  not  usually  of  intimate  interest. 
Gentlemen  were  sometimes  "  kind  "  to  you  —  gave  you  half  a 
sovereign  or  even  a  sovereign,  and  perhaps  asked  after  your 
mother  if  you  were  supporting  one ;  but  — 

"  I  never  dreamed  of  going  so  far,  sir,"  he  said.  "  I  for 
got  myself,  I  'm  afraid." 

"  Good  thing  you  did.  It 's  made  me  feel  as  if  we  were 
brothers."  He  laughed  again,  enjoying  the  thought  of  the 
little  thing  who  cared  for  Pearson  "  too  much  "  and  had  eyes 
that  were  "  that  blue."  "  Say,  I  Ve  just  thought  of  something 
else.  Have  you  bought  her  an  engagement-ring  yet  ?  " 

"  N"o,  sir.     In  our  class  of  life  jewelry  is  beyond  the  means." 

"  I  just  wondered,"  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  said.  He  seemed 
to  be  thinking  of  something  that  pleased  him  as  he  fumbled 
for  his  pocket-book  and  took  a  clean  banknote  out  of  it.  "  I  'm 
not  on  to  what  the  value  of  this  thing  is  in  real  money,  but 
you  go  and  buy  her  a  ring  with  it,  and  I  bet  she  '11  be  so  pleased 
you  '11  have  the  time  of  your  life." 

Pearson  taking  it,  and  recognizing  its  value  in  unreal  money, 
was  embarrassed  by  feeling  the  necessity  of  explanation. 

"  This  is  a  five-pound  note,  sir.     It 's  too  much,  sir,  it  is  in- 


146  T.    TEMBAROM 

deed.  This  would  furnish  the  front  parlor."  He  said  it  al 
most  solemnly. 

Mr.  Temple  Barholm  looked  at  the  note  interestedly. 

"Would  it?  By  jinks!"  and  his  laugh  had  a  certain  soft 
ness  of  recollection.  "  I  guess  that 's  just  what  Ann  would 
say.  She  'd  know  what  it  would  furnish,  you  bet  your  life ! " 

"  I  'm  most  grateful,  sir,"  protested  Pearson,  "  but  I 
oughtn't  to  take  it.  Being  an  American  gentleman  and  not 
accustomed  to  English  money,  you  don't  realize  that — " 

"  I  'm  not  accustomed  to  any  kind  of  money,"  said  his  master. 
"  I  'm  scared  to  be  left  alone  in  the  room  with  it.  That 's 
what's  the  matter.  If  I  don't  give  some  away,  I  shall  never 
know  I  've  got  it.  Cheer  up,  Pearson.  You  take  that  and  buy 
the  ring,  and  when  you  start  furnishing,  I  '11  see  you  don't  get 
left." 

"I  don't  know  what  to  say,  sir,"  Pearson  faltered  emotion 
ally.  "  I  don't,  indeed." 

"Don't  say  a  darned  thing,"  replied  Mr.  Temple  Barholm. 
And  just  here  his  face  changed  as  Mr.  Palford  had  seen  it 
change  before,  and  as  Pearson  often  saw  it  change  later.  His 
New  York  jocular  irreverence  dropped  from  him,  and  he  looked 
mature  and  oddly  serious. 

"  I  've  tried  to  sort  of  put  you  wise  to  the  way  I  've  lived 
and  the  things  I  haven't  had  ever  since  I  was  born,"  he  said, 
"  but  I  guess  you  don't  really  know  a  thing  about  it.  I  've 
got  more  money  coming  in  every  year  than  a  thousand  of  me 
would  ever  expect  to  see  in  their  lives,  according  to  my  calcu 
lation.  And  I  don't  know  how  to  do  any  of  the  things  a  fellow 
who  is  what  you  call  '  a  gentleman '  would  know  how  to  do. 
I  mean  in  the  way  of  spending  it.  Now,  I  've  got  to  get  some 
fun  out  of  it.  I  should  be  a  mutt  if  I  did  n't,  so  I  'm  going  to 
spend  it  my  own  way.  I  may  make  about  seventy-five  dif 
ferent  Jdnds  of  a  fool  of  myself,  but  I  guess  I  sha'n't  do  any 
particular  harm." 

"  You  '11  do  good,  sir, —  to  every  one." 

"  Shall  I  ?  "  said  Tembarom,  speculatively.  "  Well,  I  'm  not 
exactly  setting  out  with  that  in  my  mind.  I'm  no  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association,  but  I  'm  not  in  for  doing  harm,  any- 


T.    TEMBAROM  147 

way.  You  take  your  five-pound  note  —  come  to  think  of  it, 
Palford  said  it  came  to  about  twenty-five  dollars,  real  money. 
Hully  gee !  I  never  thought  I  'd  have  twenty-five  dollars  to 
give  away!  It  makes  me  feel  like  I  was  Morgan." 

"  Thank  you,  sir ;  thank  you/'  said  Pearson,  putting  the  note 
into  his  pocket  with  rapt  gratitude  in  his  neat  face.  "You 
—  you  do  not  wish  me  to  remain  —  to  do  anything  for  you?" 

"  Not  a  thing.  But  just  go  and  find  out  if  Mr.  Strangeways  is 
asleep.  If  he  is  n't  and  seems  restless,  I  '11  come  and  have  a 
talk  with  him." 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  Pearson,  and  went  at  once, 


CHAPTER  XIII 


N  the  course  of  two  days  Mr.  Palford,  having 
given  his  client  the  benefit  of  his  own  exact 
professional  knowledge  of  the  estate  of  Tem 
ple  Barholm  and  its  workings  and  privileges 
as  far  as  he  found  them  transferable  and 
likely  to  be  understood,  returned  to  London, 
breathing  perhaps  something  like  a  sigh  of 
relief  when  the  train  steamed  out  of  the  little 
station.  Whatsoever  happened  in  days  to 
come,  Palford  &  Grimby  had  done  their 
most  trying  and  awkward  duty  by  the  latest  Temple  Barholm. 
Bradford,  who  was  the  steward  of  the  estate,  would  now  take  him 
over,  and  could  be  trusted  to  furnish  practical  information  of 
any  ordinary  order. 

It  did  not  appear  to  Mr.  Palford  that  the  new  inheritor  was 
particularly  interested  in  his  possessions  or  exhilarated  by  the 
extraordinary  turn  in  his  fortunes.  The  enormity  of  Temple 
Barholm  itself,  regarded  as  a  house  to  live  in  in  an  everyday 
manner,  seemed  somewhat  to  depress  him.  When  he  was  taken 
over  its  hundred  and  fifty  rooms,  he  wore  a  detached  air  as  he 
looked  about  him,  and  such  remarks  as  he  made  were  of  an 
extraordinary  nature  and  expressed  in  terms  peculiar  to  Amer 
ica.  Neither  Mr.  Palford  nor  Burrill  understood  them,  but  a 
young  footman  who  was  said  to  have  once  paid  a  visit  to  New 
York,  and  who  chanced  to  be  in  the  picture-gallery  when  his 
new  master  was-  looking  at  the  portraits  of  his  ancestors,  over 
hearing  one  observation,  was  guilty  of  a  convulsive  snort,  and 
immediately  made  his  way  into  the  corridor,  coughing  violently. 
From  this  Mr.  Palford  gathered  that  one  of  the  transatlantic 
jokes  had  been  made.  That  was  the  New  York  idea  —  to  be 
jocular.  Yet  he  had  not  looked  jocular  when  he  had  made  the 

148 


T.    TEMBAROM  149 

remark  which  had  upset  the  equilibrium  of  the  young  foot 
man.  He  had,  in  fact,  looked  reflective  before  speaking  as  he 
stood  and  studied  a  portrait  of  one  of  his  ancestors.  But,  then, 
he  had  a  trick  of  saying  things  incomprehensibly  ridiculous 
with  an  unmoved  expression  of  gravity,  which  led  Palford  to 
feel  that  he  was  ridiculous  through  utter  ignorance  and  was 
not  aware  that  he  was  exposing  the  fact.  Persons  who  thought 
that  an  air  of  seriousness  added  to  a  humorous  remark  were 
especially  annoying  to  the  solicitor,  because  they  frequently  be 
trayed  one  into  the  position  of  seeming  to  be  dull  in  the  mat 
ter  of  seeing  a  point.  That,  he  had  observed,  was  often  part 
of  the  New  York  manner  —  to  make  a  totally  absurdly  exag 
gerated  or  seemingly  ignorance-revealing  observation,  and  then 
leave  one's  hearer  to  decide  for  himself  whether  the  speaker 
was  an  absolute  ignoramus  and  fool  or  a  humorist. 

More  than  once  he  had  somewhat  suspected  his  client  of 
meaning  to  "  get  a  rise  out  of  him/'  after  the  odious  manner 
of  the  tourists  described  in  "The  Innocents  Abroad,"  though 
at  the  same  time  he  felt  rather  supportingly  sure  of  the  fact 
that  generally,  when  he  displayed  ignorance,  he  displayed  it  be 
cause  he  was  a  positive  encyclopedia  of  lack  of  knowledge. 

He  knew  no  more  of  social  customs,  literature,  and  art  than 
any  other  street  lad.  He  had  not  belonged  to  the  aspiring  self- 
taught,  who  meritoriously  haunt  the  night  schools  and  free 
libraries  with  a  view  to  improving  their  minds.  If  this  had 
been  his  method,  he  might  in  one  sense  have  been  more  difficult 
to  handle,  as  Palford  had  seen  the  thing  result  in  a  bumptious 
ness  most  objectionable.  He  was  markedly  not  bumptious,  at 
all  events. 

A  certain  degree  of  interest  in  or  curiosity  concerning  his 
ancestors  as  represented  in  the  picture-gallery  Mr.  Palford  had 
observed.  He  had  stared  at  them  and  had  said  queer  things 
—  sometimes  things  which  perhaps  indicated  a  kind  of  unedu 
cated  thought.  The  fact  that  some  of  them  looked  so  thor 
oughly  alive,  and  yet  had  lived  centuries  ago,  seemed  to  set  him 
reflecting  oddly.  His  curiosity,  however,  seemed  to  connect 
itself  with  them  more  as  human  creatures  than  as  historical 
figures. 


150  T.    TEMBAEOM 

"What  did  that  one  do?"  he  inquired  more  than  once. 
"  What  did  he  start,  or  did  n't  he  start  anything  ?  " 

When  he  disturbed  the  young  footman  he  had  stopped  before 
a  dark  man  in  armor. 

"  Who  's  this  fellow  in  the  tin  overcoat  ?  "  he  asked  seriously, 
and  Palford  felt  it  was  quite  possible  that  he  had  no  actual  in 
tent  of  being  humorous. 

"  That  is  Miles  Gaspard  IsTevil  John,  who  fought  in  the 
Crusades  with  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion,"  he  explained.  "  He  is 
wearing  a  suit  of  armor."  By  this  time  the  footman  was 
coughing  in  the  corridor. 

"  That 's  English  history,  I  guess,"  Tembarom  replied.  "  I  '11 
have  to  get  a  history-book  and  read  up  about  the  Crusades." 

He  went  on  farther,  and  paused  with  a  slightly  puzzled  ex 
pression  before  a  boy  in  a  costume  of  the  period  of  Charles  II. 

"  Who 's  this  Fauntleroy  in  the  lace  collar  ?  "  he  inquired. 
"  Queer !  "  he  added,  as  though  to  himself.  "  I  can't  ever  have 
seen  him  in  New  York."  And  he  took  a  step  backward  to 
look  again. 

"  That  is  Miles  Hugo  Charles  James,  who  was  a  page  at  the 
court  of  Charles  II.  He  died  at  nineteen,  and  was  succeeded 
by  his  brother  Denzel  Maurice  John." 

"  I  feel  as  if  I  'd  had  a  dream  about  him  sometime  or  other," 
said  Tembarom,  and  he  stood  still  a  few  seconds  before  he 
passed  on.  "  Perhaps  I  saw  something  like  him  getting  out  of 
a  carriage  to  go  into  the  Van  Twillers'  fancy-dress  ball.  Seems 
as  if  I  'd  got  the  whole  show  shut  up  in  here.  And  you  say 
they  're  all  my  own  relations  ?  "  Then  he  laughed.  "  If  they 
were  alive  now  !  "  he  said.  "  By  jinks !  " 

His  laughter  suggested  that  he  was  entertained  by  mental 
visions.  But  he  did  not  explain  to  his  companion.  His  legal 
adviser  was  not  in  the  least  able  to  form  any  opinion  of  what 
he  would  do,  how  he  would  be  likely  to  comport  himself,  when 
he  was  left  entirely  to  his  own  devices.  He  would  not  know 
also,  one  might  be  sure,  that  the  county  would  wait  with  re 
pressed  anxiety  to  find  out.  If  he  had  been  a  minor,  he  might 
have  been  taken  in  hand,  and  trained  and  educated  to  some 
extent.  But  he  was  not  a  minor. 


T.    TEMBAROM  151 

On  the  day  of  Mr.  Palford's  departure  a  thick  fog  had  de 
scended  and  seemed  to  enwrap  the  world  in  the  white  wool. 
Tembarom  found  it  close  to  his  windows  when  he  got  up,  and 
he  had  dressed  by  the  light  of  tall  wax  candles,  the  previous 
Mr.  Temple  Barholm  having  objected  to  more  modern  and 
vulgar  methods  of  illumination. 

"  I  guess  this  is  what  you  call  a  London  fog,"  he  said  to 
Pearson. 

"No,  not  exactly  the  London  sort,  sir/'  Pearson  answered. 
<(  A  London  fog  is  yellow  —  when  it  is  n't  brown  or  black.  It 
settles  on  the  hands  and  face.  A  fog  in  the  country  is  n't  dirty 
•with  smoke.  It 's  much  less  trying,  sir." 

When  Palford  had  departed  and  he  was  entirely  alone,  Tem 
barom  found  a  country  fog  trying  enough  for  a  man  without 
a  companion.  A  degree  of  relief  permeated  his  being  with 
the  knowledge  that  he  need  no  longer  endeavor  to  make  suitable 
reply  to  his  solicitor's  efforts  at  conversation.  He  had  made 
conversational  efforts  himself.  You  couldn't  let  a  man  feel 
that  you  would  n't  talk  to  him  if  you  could  when  he  was  doing 
business  for  you,  but  what  in  thunder  did  you  have  to  talk 
about  that  a  man  like  that  would  n't  be  bored  stiff  by  ?  He 
did  n't  like  New  York,  he  did  n't  know  anything  about  it,  and 
he  didn't  want  to  know,  and  Tembarom  knew  nothing  about 
anything  else,  and  was  homesick  for  the  very  stones  of  the 
roaring  city's  streets.  When  he  said  anything,  Palford  either 
didn't  understand  what  he  was  getting  at  or  he  didn't  like 
it.  And  he  always  looked  as  if  he  was  watching  to  see  if  you 
were  trying  to  get  a  joke  on  him.  Tembarom  was  frequently 
not  nearly  so  much  inclined  to  be  humorous  as  Mr.  Palford 
had  irritably  suspected  him  of  being.  His  modes  of  expression 
might  on  numerous  occasions  have  roused  to  mirth  when  his 
underlying  idea  was  almost  entirely  seriousv  ,The  mode  of  ex 
pression  was  merely  a  result  of  habit. 

Mr.  Palford  left  by  an  extremely  early  train,  and  after  he 
was  gone,  Tembarom  sat  over  his  breakfast  as  long  as  possible, 
and  then,  going  to  the  library,  smoked  long.  The  library  was 
certainly  comfortable,  though  the  fire  and  the  big  wax  candles 
were  called  upon  to  do  their  best  to  defy  the  chill,  mysterious 


152  T.    TEMBAEOM 

dimness  produced  by  the  heavy,  .white  wool  curtain  folding  itself 
more  and  more  thickly  outside  the  windows. 

But  one  cannot  smoke  in  solitary  idleness  for  much  more  than 
an  hour,  and  when  he  stood  up  and  knocked  the  ashes  out  of 
his  last  pipe,  Tembarom  drew  a  long  breath. 

"  There 's  a  hundred  and  thirty-six  hours  in  each  of  these 
days/'  he  said.  "  That 's  nine  hundred  and  fifty-two  in  a 
week,  and  four  thousand  and  eighty  in  a  month  —  when  it 's 
got  only  thirty  days  in  it.  I  'm  not  going  to  calculate  how 
many  there  'd  be  in  a  year.  I  '11  have  a  look  at  the  papers. 
There 's  Punch.  That 's  their  comic  one." 

He  looked  out  the  American  news  in  the  London  papers,  and 
sighed  hugely.  He  took  up  Punch  and  read  every  joke 
two  or  three  times  over.  He  did  not  know  that  the  number 
was  a  specially  good  one  and  that  there  were  some  extremely 
witty  things  in  it.  The  jokes  were  about  bishops  in  gaiters, 
about  garden-parties,  about  curates  or  lovely  young  ladies  or 
rectors'  wives  and  rustics,  about  Royal  Academicians  or  esthetic 
poets.  Their  humor  appealed  to  him  as  little  and  seemed  as  ob 
scure  as  his  had  seemed  to  Mr.  Palford. 

"  I  'm  not  laughing  my  head  off  much  over  these,"  he  said. 
"  I  guess  I  'm  not  on  to  the  point." 

He  got  up  and  walked  about.  The  "  L  "  in  New  York  was 
roaring  to  and  fro  loaded  with  men  and  women  going  to  work 
or  to  do  shopping.  Some  of  them  were  devouring  morning 
papers  bearing  no  resemblance  to  those  of  London,  some  of 
them  carried  parcels,  and  all  of  them  looked  as  though  they 
were  intent  on  something  or  other  and  had  n't  a  moment  to 
waste.  They  were  all  going  somewhere  in  a  hurry  and  had  to 
get  back  in  time  for  something.  When  the  train  whizzed  and 
slackened  at  a  station,  some  started  up,  hastily  caught  their 
papers  or  bundles  closer,  and  pushed  or  were  pushed  out  on 
the  platform,  which  was  crowded  with  other  people  who  rushed 
to  get  in,  and  if  they  found  seats,  dropped  into  them  hastily 
with  an  air  of  relief.  The  street-cars  were  loaded  and  rang 
their  bells  loudly,  trucks  and  carriages  and  motors  filled  the 
middle  of  the  thoroughfares,  and  people  crowded  the  pave 
ments.  The  store  windows  were  dressed  up  for  Christmas,  and 


T.    TEMBAKOM  153 

most  of  the  people  crowded  before  them  were  calculating  as  to 
what  they  could  get  for  the  inadequate  sums  they  had  on 
hand. 

The  breakfast  at  Mrs.  Bowse's  boarding-house  was  over,  and 
the  boarders  had  gone  on  cars  or  elevated  trains  to  their  day's 
work.  Mrs.  Bowse  was  getting  ready  to  go  out  and  do  some 
marketing.  Julius  and  Jim  were  down-town  deep  in  the  work 
pertaining  to  their  separate  "  jobs."  They  'd  go  home  at  night, 
and  perhaps,  if  they  were  in  luck,  would  go  to  a  "  show  "  some 
where,  and  afterward  come  and  sit  in  their  tilted  chairs  in  the 
hall  bedroom  and  smoke  and  talk  it  over.  And  he  wouldn't 
be  there,  and  the  Hutchinsons'  rooms  would  be  empty,  unless 
some  new  people  were  in  them.  Galton  would  be  sitting  among 
his  papers,  working  like  mad.  And  Bennett  —  well,  Bennett 
would  be  either  "  getting  out  his  page,"  or  would  be  rushing 
about  in  the  hundredth  streets  to  find  items  and  follow  up 
weddings  or  receptions. 

"  Gee ! "  he  said,  "  every  one  of  them  trying  their  best  to 
put  something  over,  and  with  so  much  to  think  of  they  've  not 
got  time  to  breathe !  It  'd  be  no  trouble  for  them  to  put  in 
a  hundred  and  thirty-six  hours.  They'd  be  darned  glad  of 
them.  And,  believe  me,  they  'd  put  something  over,  too,  before 
they  got  through.  And  I'm  here,  with  three  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars  a  year  round  my  neck  and  not  a  thing  to  spend 
it  on,  unless  I  pay  some  one  part  of  it  to  give  me  lessons  in 
tatting.  What  is  tatting,  anyhow  ? 

He  didn't  really  know.  It  was  vaguely  supposed  to  imply 
some  intensely  feminine  fancy-work  done  by  old  ladies,  and 
used  as  a  figure  of  speech  in  jokes. 

"If  you  could  ride  or  shoot,  you  could  amuse  yourself  in 
the  country,"  Palford  had  said. 

"  I  can  ride  in  a  street-car  when  I  Ve  got  five  cents,"  Tem- 
barom  had  answered.  "  That 's  as  far  as  I  've  gone  in  riding 
—  and  what  in  thunder  should  I  shoot  ?  " 

"  Game,"  replied  Mr.  Palford,  with  chill  inward  disgust. 
"Pheasants,  partridges,  woodcock,  grouse — " 

"  I  should  n't  shoot  anything  like  that  if  I  went  at  it,"  he 
responded  shamelessly.  "I  should  shoot  my  own  head  off,  or 


154  T.    TEMBAEOM 

the  fellow's  that  stood  next  to  me,  unless  he  got  the  drop  on 
me  first." 

He  did  not  know  that  he  was  ignominious.  Nobody  could 
have  made  it  clear  to  him.  He  did  not  know  that  there  were 
men  who  had  gained  distinction,  popularity,  and  fame  by  do 
ing  nothing  in  particular  but  hitting  things  animate  and  in 
animate  with  magnificent  precision  of  aim. 

He  stood  still  now  and  listened  to  the  silence. 

"There's  not  a  sound  within  a  thousand  miles  of  the  place. 
What  do  fellows  with  money  do  to  keep  themselves  alive?" 
he  said  piteously.  "They've  got  to  do  something.  Shall  I 
have  to  go  out  and  take  a  walk,  as  Palford  called  it?  Take  a 
walk,  by  gee ! " 

He  could  n't  conceive  it,  a  man  "  taking  a  walk  "  as  though 
it  were  medicine  —  a  walk  nowhere,  to  reach  nothing,  just  to 
go  and  turn  back  again. 

"I'll  begin  and  take  in  sewing,"  he  said,  "or  I'll  open  a 
store  in  the  village  —  a  department  store.  I  could  spend 
something  on  that.  I  '11  ask  Pearson  what  he  thinks  of  it  — • 
or  Burrill.  I  'd  like  to  see  Burrill  if  I  said  that  to  him." 

He  decided  at  last  that  he  would  practise  his  "  short "  awhile ; 
that  would  be  doing  something,  at  any  rate.  He  sat  down  at 
the  big  writing-table  and  began  to  dash  off  mystic  signs  at 
furious  speed.  But  the  speed  did  not  keep  up.  The  silence  of 
the  great  room,  of  the  immense  house,  of  all  the  scores  of 
rooms  and  galleries  and  corridors,  closed  in  about  him.  He 
had  practised  his  "  short "  in  the  night  school,  with  the  "  L  " 
thundering  past  at  intervals  of  five  minutes;  in  the  newspaper 
office,  with  all  the  babel  of  New  York  about  him  and  the  bang 
of  steam-drills  going  on  below  in  the  next  lot,  where  the 
foundation  of  a  new  building  was  being  excavated;  he  had 
practised  it  in  his  hall  bedroom  at  Mrs.  Bowse's,  to  the  tumul 
tuous  accompaniment  of  street  sounds  and  the  whizz  and  ting-a* 
ling  of  street-cars  dashing  past,  and  he  had  not  been  disturbed. 
He  had  never  practised  it  in  any  place  which  was  silent,  and 
it  was  the  silence  which  became  more  than  he  could  stand.  He 
actually  jumped  out  of  his  chair  when  he  heard  mysterious 
footsteps  outside  the  door,  and  a  footman  appeared  and  spoke 


T.    TEMBAEOM  155 

in  a  low  voice  which  startled  him  as  though  it  had  been  a  thun 
derclap. 

"  A  young  person  with  her  father  wants  to  see  you,  sir/'  he 
announced.  "  I  don't  think  they  are  villagers,  but  of  the  work 
ing-class,  I  should  say/' 

"Where  are  they?" 

"  I  did  n't  know  exactly  what  to  do,  sir,  so  I  left  them  in  the 
hall.  '  The  young  person  has  a  sort  of  quiet,  determined  way  — " 

"  Little  Ann,  by  gee ! "  exclaimed  Tembarom  with  mad  joy, 
and  shot  out  of  the  room. 

The  footman  —  he  had  not  seen  Little  Ann  when  she  had 
brought  Strangeways  —  looked  after  him  and  rubbed  his  chin. 

"Wouldn't  you  call  that  a  rummy  sort  for  Temple  Bar- 
holm  ?  "  he  said  to  one  of  his  fellows  who  had  appeared  in  the 
hall  near  him. 

"  It  'B  not  my  sort,"  was  the  answer.  "  I  'm  going  to  give 
notice  to  old  Butterworth." 

Hutchinson  and  Little  Ann  were  waiting  in  the  hall.  Hut- 
chinson  was  looking  at  the  rich,  shadowy  spaces  about  him  with 
a  sort  of  proud  satisfaction.  Fine,  dark  corners  with  armored 
figures  lurking  in  them,  ancient  portraits,  carved  oak  settles, 
and  massive  chairs  and  cabinets  —  these  were  English,  and  he 
was  an  Englishman,  and  somehow  felt  them  the  outcome  of 
certain  sterling  qualities  of  his  own.  He  looked  robustly  well, 
and  wore  a  new  rough  tweed  suit  such  as  one  of  the  gentry 
might  tramp  about  muddy  roads  and  fields  in.  Little  Ann 
was  dressed  in  something  warm  and  rough  also,  a  brown  thing, 
with  a  little  close,  cap-like,  brown  hat,  from  under  which  her 
red  hair  glowed.  The  walk  in  the  cold,  white  fog  had  made 
her  bloom  fresh,  soft-red  and  white-daisy  color.  She  was  smil 
ing,  and  showing  three  distinct  dimples,  which  deepened  when 
Tembarom  dashed  out  of  the  library. 

"  Hully  gee !  "  he  cried  out,  "  but  I  'm  glad  to  see  you !  " 

He  shook  hands  with  both  of  them  furiously,  and  two  foot 
men  stood  and  looked  at  the  group  with  image-like  calm  of 
feature,  but  with  curiously  interested  eyes.  Hutchinson  was 
aware  of  them,  and  endeavored  to  present  to  them  a  back  which 
by  its  stolid  composure  should  reveal  that  he  knew  more  about 


156  T.   TEMBAEOM 

^ 

such  things  than  this  chap  did  and  was  n't  a  bit  upset  by  gran 
deur. 

"  Hully  gee ! "  cried  Tembarom  again,  "  how  glad  I  am ! 
Come  on  in  and  sit  down  and  let  's  talk  it  over." 

Burrill  made  a  stately  step  forward,  properly  intent  on  his 
duty,  but  his  master  waved  him  back. 

"  Say,"  he  said  hastily,  "  don't  bring  in  any  tea.  They  don't 
want  it.  They're  Americans." 

Hutchinson  snorted.  He  could  not  stand  being  consigned 
to  ignominy  before  the  footmen. 

"  Nowt  o'  th'  sort,"  he  broke  forth.  "  We  're  noan  American. 
Tha  'rt  losing  tha  head,  lad." 

"  He 's  forgetting  because  he  met  us  first  in  New  York," 
said  Little  Ann,  smiling  still  more. 

"  Shall  I  take  your  hat  and  cane,  sir  ?  "  inquired  Burrill,  un- 
movedly,  at  Hutchinson's  side. 

"  He  was  n't  going  to  say  anything  about  tea,"  explained 
Little  Ann  as  they  went  into  the  library.  "  They  don't  expect 
to  serve  tea  in  the  middle  of  the  morning,  Mr.  Temple  Bar- 
holm." 

"Don't  they?"  said  Tembarom,  reckless  with  relieved  de 
light.  "I  thought  they  served  it  every  time  the  clock  struck. 
When  we  were  in  London  it  seemed  like  Palford  had  it  when 
he  was  hot  and  when  he  was  cold  and  when  he  was  glad  and 
when  ha  was  sorry  and  when  he  was  going  out  and  when  he 
was  coming  in.  It 's  brought  up  to  me,  by  jinks !  as  soon  as  I 
wake,  to  brace  me  up  to  put  on  my  clothes  —  and  Pearson 
wants  to  put  those  on." 

He  stopped  short  when  they  reached  the  middle  of  the  room 
and  looked  her  over. 

"0  Little  Ann!"  he  breathed  tumultuously.  "0  Little 
Ann!" 

Mr.  Hutchinson  was  looking  about  the  library  as  he  had 
looked  about  the  hall. 

"  Well,  I  never  thought  I  'd  get  inside  Temple  Barholm  in 
my  day,"  he  exclaimed.  "  Eh,  lad,  tha  must  feel  like  a  bull  in 
a  china  shop." 

"  I  feel  like  a  whole  herd  of  'em,"  answered  Tembarom. 


T.   TEMBAKOM  157 

Hutchinson  nodded.     He  understood. 

"Well,  perhaps  tha '11  get  over  it  in  time/'  he  conceded, 
"  but  it  '11  take  thee  a  good  bit."  Then  he  gave  him  a  warmly 
friendly  look.  "  I  '11  lay  you  know  what  Ann  came  with  me 
for  to-day."  The  way  Little  Ann  looked  at  him  —  the  way 
she  looked  at  him ! 

"  I  came  to  thank  you,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,"  she  said  — "  to 
thank  you."  And  there  was  an  odd,  tender  sound  in  her 
voice. 

"  Don't  you  do  it,  Ann,"  Tembarom  answered.  "  Don't  you 
do  it." 

"  I  don't  know  much  about  business,  but  the  way  you  must 
have  worked,  the  way  you  must  have  had  to  run  after  people, 
and  find  them,  and  make  them  listen,  and  use  all  your  New 
York  cleverness  —  because  you  are  clever.  The  way  you've 
forgotten  all  about  yourself  and  thought  of  nothing  but'  father 
and  the  invention !  I  do  know  enough  to  understand  that,  and 
it  seems  as  if  I  can't  think  of  enough  to  say.  I  just  wish  I 
could  tell  you  what  it  means  to  me."  Two  round  pearls  of 
tears  brimmed  over  and  fell  down  her  cheeks.  "  I  promised 
mother  faithful'  I  'd  take  care  of  him  and  see  he  never  lost 
hope  about  it,"  she  added,  "  and  sometimes  I  did  n't  know 
whatever  I  was  going  to  do." 

It  was  perilous  when  she  looked  at  one  like  that,  and  she 
was  so  little  and  light  that  one  could  have  snatched  her  up 
in  his  arms  and  carried  her  to  the  big  arm-chair  and  sat  down 
with  her  and  rocked  her  backward  and  forward  and  poured 
forth  the  whole  thing  that  was  making  him  feel  as  though  he 
might  explode. 

Hutchinson  provided  salvation. 

"  Tha  pulled  me  out  o'  the  water  just  when  I  was  going 
under,  lad.  God  bless  thee !  "  he  broke  out,  and  shook  his  hand 
with  rough  vigor.  "  I  signed  with  the  North  Electric  yester- 
day." 

"  Good  business  !  "  said  Tembarom.  "  Now  I  'm  in  on  the 
ground  floor  with  what 's  going  to  be  the  biggest  money-maker 
in  sight." 

"  The  way  tha  talked  New  York  to  them  chaps  took  my 


158  T.    TEMBAEOM 

fancy,"  chuckled  Hutchinson.  "  None  o'  them  chaps  wants  to 
be  the  first  to  jump  over  the  hedge." 

"  We  '\e  got  'em  started  now,"  exulted  Tembarom. 

"  Tha  started  'em,"  said  Hutchinson,  "  and  it 's  thee  I  've 
got  to  thank." 

"  Say,  Little  Ann,"  said  Tembarom,  with  sudden  thought, 
"  who 's  come  into  money  now  ?  You  '11  have  it  to  burn." 

"  We  've  not  got  it  yet,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,"  she  replied, 
shaking  her  head.  "  Even  when  inventions  get  started,  they 
don't  go  off  like  sky-rockets." 

"  She  knows  everything,  does  n't  she  ? "  Tembarom  said  to 
Hutchinson.  "  Here,  come  and  sit  down.  I  've  not  seen  you 
for  'steen  years." 

She  took  her  seat  in  the  big  arm-chair  and  looked  at  him 
with  softly  examining  eyes,  as  though  she  wanted  to  under 
stand  him  sufficiently  to  be  able  to  find  out  something  she  ought 
to  do  if  he  needed  help. 

He  saw  it  and  half  laughed,  not  quite  unwaveringly. 

"  You  '11  make  me  cry  in  a  minute,"  he  said.  "  You  don't 
know  what  it 's  like  to  have  some  one  from  home  and  mother 
come  and  be  kind  to  you." 

"  How  is  Mr.  Strangeways  ?  "  she  inquired. 

"  He  's  well  taken  care  of,  at  any  rate.  That 's  where  he 's 
got  to  thank  you.  Those  rooms  you  and  the  housekeeper  chose 
were  the  very  things  for  him.  They  're  big  and  comfortable, 
and  'way  off  in  a  place  where  no  one 's  likely  to  come  near.  The 
fellow  that's  been  hired  to  valet  me  valets  him  instead,  and  I 
believe  he  likes  it.  It  seems  to  come  quite  natural  to  him,  any 
how.  I  go  in  and  see  him  every  now  and  then  and  try  to  get 
him  to  talk.  I  sort  of  invent  things  to  see  if  I  can  start  him 
thinking  straight.  He 's  quieted  down  some  and  he  looks  better. 
After  a  while  I  'm  going  to  look  up  some  big  doctors  in  London 
and  find  out  which  of  'em 's  got  the  most  plain  horse  sense.  If 
a  real  big  one  would  just  get  interested  and  come  and  see  him 
on  the  quiet  and  not  get  him  excited,  he  might  do  him  good. 
I  'm  dead  stuck  on  this  stunt  I  've  set  myself  —  getting  him 
right.  It's  something  to  work  on." 

"You'll  have  plenty  to  work  on  soon,"   said  Little  Ann. 


She  took  her  seat  in  the  big  arm-chair  and  looked  at  him  with 
softly  examining  eyes 


T.    TEMBAROM  159 

"  There 's  a  lot  of  everyday  things  you  've  got  to  think  about. 
They  may  seem  of  no  consequence  to  you,  but  they  are,  Mr. 
Temple  Barholm." 

"  If  you  say  they  are,  I  guess  they  are,"  he  answered.  "  I  '11 
do  anything  you  say,  Ann." 

"  I  came  partly  to  tell  you  about  some  of  them  to-day,"  she 
went  on,  keeping  the  yearningly  thoughtful  eyes  on  him.  It 
was  rather  hard  for  her,  too,  to  be  firm  enough  when  there  was 
so  much  she  wanted  to  say  and  do.  And  he  did  not  look  half  as 
twinkling  and  light-heartedly  grinning  as  he  had  looked  in  New 
York. 

He  could  n't  help  dropping  his  voice  a  little  coaxingly,  though 
Mr.  Hutchinson  was  quite  sufficiently  absorbed  in  examination 
of  his  surroundings. 

"  Did  n't  you  come  to  save  my  life  by  letting  me  have  a  look 
at  you,  Little  Ann  —  did  n't  you  ?  "  he  pleaded. 

She  shook  her  wonderful,  red  head. 

"  No,  I  did  n't,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm/'  she  answered  with 
Manchester  downrightness.  "When  I  said  what  I  did  in  New 
York,  I  meant  it.  I  didn't  intend  to  hang  about  here  and 
let  you  —  say  things  to  me.  You  mustn't  say  them.  Father 
and  me  are  going  back  to  Manchester  in  a  few  days,  and  very 
soon  we  have  to  go  to  America  again  because  of  the  busi 
ness." 

"  America !  "  he  said.  "  Oh,  Lord !  "  he  groaned.  "  Do  you 
want  me  to  drop  down  dead  here  with  a  dull,  sickening  thud, 
Ann?" 

"You're  not  going  to  drop  down  dead,"  she  replied  con- 
vincedly.  "You're  going  to  stay  here  and  do  whatever  it's 
your  duty  to  do,  now  you  've  come  into  Temple  Barholm." 

"  Am  I  ?  "  he  answered.  "  Well,  we  '11  see  what  I  'm  going 
to  do  when  I  've  had  time  to  make  up  my  mind.  It  may  be 
something  different  from  what  you'd  think,  and  it  mayn't. 
Just  now  I'm  going  to  do  what  you  tell  me.  Go  ahead,  Little 
Ann." 

She  thought  the  matter  over  with  her  most  destructive  little 
air  of  sensible  intentness. 

"  Well,  it  may  seem  like  meddling,  but  it  is  n't,"  she  began 


160  T.   TEMBAEOM 

rather  concernedly.  "  It 's  just  that  I  'm  used  to  looking  after 
people.  I  wanted  to  talk  to  you  about  your  clothes/' 

"My  clothes?"  he  replied,  bewildered  a  moment;  but  the 
next  he  understood  and  grinned.  "  I  have  n't  got  any.  My 
valet  —  think  of  T.  T.  with  a  valet !  —  told  me  so  last  night." 

"  That 's  what  I  thought/'  she  said  maternally.  "  I  got  Mrs. 
Bowse  to  write  to  me,  and  she  told  me  you  were  so  hurried  and 
excited  you  had  n't  time  for  anything." 

"I  just  rushed  into  Cohen's  the  last  day  and  yanked  a  few 
things  off  the  ready-made  counter." 

She  looked  him  over  with  impersonal  criticism. 

"  I  thought  so.     Those  you  've  got  on  won't  do  at  all." 

Tembarom  glanced  at  them. 

"  That 's  what  Pearson  says." 

"They're  not  the  right  shape,"  she  explained.  "I  know 
what  a  gentleman's  clothes  mean  in  England,  and — "  her  face 
flushed,  and  sudden,  warm  spirit  made  her  speak  rather  fast  — 
"  I  could  n't  abide  to  think  of  you  coming  here  and  —  being  made 
fun  of  —  just  because  you  hadn't  the  right  clothes." 

She  said  it,  the  little  thing,  as  though  he  were  hers  —  her 
very  own,  and  defend  him  against  disrespect  she  would.  Tem 
barom,  being  but  young  flesh  and  blood,  made  an  impetuous  dart 
toward  her,  and  checked  himself,  catching  his  breath. 

"  Ann,"  he  said,  "  has  your  grandmother  got  a  dog  ?  " 

"  Y-e-s,"  she  said,  faltering  because  she  was  puzzled. 

"How  big  is  he?" 

"  He 's  a  big  one.     He 's  a  brindled  bulldog.     Why  ?  " 

"  Well,"  he  said,  half  pathetic,  half  defiant,  "  if  you  're  go 
ing  to  come  and  talk  to  me  like  that,  and  look  like  that,  you  've 
got  to  bring  that  bull  along  and  set  him  on  me  when  I  make 
a  break ;  for  there 's  nothing  but  a  dog  can  keep  me  where 
you  want  me  to  stay  —  and  a  big  one  at  that." 

He  sat  down  on  an  ottoman  near  her  and  dropped  his  head 
on  his  hands.  It  was  not  half  such  a  joke  as  it  sounded. 

Little  Ann  saw  it  was  n't  and  she  watched  him  tenderly, 
catching  her  breath  once  quickly.  Men  had  ways  of  taking 
some  things  hard  and  feeling  them  a  good  bit  more  than  one 


T.    TEMBAROM  161 

would  think.  It  made  trouble  many  a  time  if  one  couldn't 
help  them  to  think  reasonable. 

"  Father/'  she  said  to  Hutchinson. 

"Aye,"  he  answered,  turning  round. 

"  Will  you  tell  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  that  you  think  I  'm 
right  about  giving  him  his  chance  ?  " 

"  Of  course  I  think  she 's  right,"  Hutchinson  blustered, 
"  and  it  is  n't  the  first  time  either.  I  'm  not  going  to  have 
my  lass  married  into  any  family  where  she'd  be  looked  down 
upon." 

But  that  was  not  what  Little  Ann  wanted ;  it  was  not,  in  fact, 
her  argument.  She  was  not  thinking  of  that  side  of  the  situa 
tion. 

"  It 's  not  me  that  matters  so  much,  Father,"  she  said ;  "  it 's 
him." 

"  Oh,  is  it  ?  "  disagreed  Hutchinson,  dictatorially.  "  That 's 
not  th'  road  I  look  at  it.  I  'm  looking  after  you,  not  him. 
Let  him  take  care  of  himself.  No  chap  shall  put  you  where 
you  won't  be  looked  up  to,  even  if  I  am  grateful  to  him.  So 
there  you  have  it." 

"  He  can't  take  care  of  himself  when  he  feels  like  this,"  she 
answered.  "  That 's  why  I  'm  taking  care  of  him.  He  '11  think 
steadier  when  he  's  himself  again."  She  put  out  her  hand  and 
softly  touched  his  shoulder. 

"  Don't  do  that,"  she  said.  "  You  make  me  want  to  be  silly." 
There  was  a  quiver  in  her  voice,  but  she  tried  to  change  it. 
"  If  you  don't  lift  your  head,"  she  added  with  a  great  effort  at 
disciplinarian  firmness,  "  I  shall  have  to  go  away  without  telling 
you  the  other  things." 

He  lifted  his  head,  but  his  attempt  at  a  smile  was  not  hila 
rious. 

"  Well,  Ann/*"  he  submitted,  "  I  've  warned  you.  Bring  along 
your  dog." 

She  took  a  sheet  of  paper  out  of  one  of  the  neat  pockets  in 
her  rough,  brown  coat. 

"  I  just  wrote  down  some  of  the  very  best  tailors'  addresses 
—  the  very  best,"  she  explained.  "Don't  you  go  to  any  but 


162  T.   TEMBAROM 

the  very  best,  and  be  a  bit  sharp  with  them  if  they  're  not  at 
tentive.  They'll  think  all  the  better  of  you.  If  your  valet's 
a  smart  one,  take  him  with  you." 

"  Yes,  Ann,"  he  said  rather  weakly.  "  He 's  going  to  make  a 
list  of  tilings  himself,  anyhow." 

"  That  sounds  as  if  he  'd  got  some  sense."  She  handed  him 
the  list  of  addresses.  "You  give  him  this,  and  tell  him  he 
must  go  to  the  very  best  ones." 

"  What  do  I  want  to  put  on  style  for  ?  "  he  asked  desperately. 
"  I  don't  know  a  soul  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean." 

"You  soon  will,"  she  replied,  with  calm  perspicacity. 
"  You  've  got  too  much  money  not  to." 

A  gruff  chuckle  made  itself  heard  from  Hutchinson's  side  of 
the  room. 

"Aye,  seventy  thousand  a  year '11  bring  th'  vultures  about 
thee,  lad." 

"We  needn't  call  them  vultures  exactly,"  was  Little  Ann's 
tolerant  comment;  "but  a  lot  of  people  will  come  here  to  see 
you.  That  was  one  of  the  things  I  thought  I  might  tell  you 
about" 

"  Say,  you  're  a  wonder ! " 

"I'm  nothing  of  the  sort.  I'm  just  a  girl  with  a  bit  of 
common  sense  —  and  grandmother's  one  that's  looked  on  a 
long  time,  and  she  sees  things.  The  country  gentlemen  will 
begin  to  call  on  you  soon,  and  then  you'll  be  invited  to  their 
houses  to  meet  their  wives  and  daughters,  and  then  you'll  be 
kept  pretty  busy." 

Hutchinson's  bluff  chuckle  broke  out  again. 

"You  will  that,  my  lad,  when  th'  match-making  mothers 
get  after  you.  There's  plenty  on  'em." 

"Father's  joking,"  she  said.    Her  tone  was  judicially  un 
prejudiced.    "There  are  young  ladies  that  —  that'd  be  very 
suitable.     Pretty  ones  and  clever  ones.    You'll  see  them  all." 
"  I  don't  want  to  see  them." 

"You  can't  help  it,"  she  said,  with  mild  decision.  "When 
there  are  daughters  and  a  new  gentleman  comes  into  a  big 
property  in  the  neighborhood,  it 's  nothing  but  natural  that  the 
mothers  should  be  a  bit  anxious." 


T.    TEMBAROM  163 

"Aye,  they'll  be  anxious  enough.  Mak'  sure  o'  that," 
laughed  Hutchinson. 

"  Is  that  what  you  want  me  to  put  on  style  for,  Little  Ann  ?  " 
Tembarom  asked  reproachfully. 

"  I  want  you  to  put  it  on  for  yourself.  I  don't  want  you  to 
look  different  from  other  men.  Everybody 's  curious  about  you. 
They're  ready  to  laugh  because  you  came  from  America  and 
once  sold  newspapers." 

"  It 's  the  men  he  '11  have  to  look  out  for,"  Hutchinson  put 
in,  with  an  experienced  air.  "  There 's  them  that  '11  want  to 
borrow  money,  and  them  that'll  want  to  drink  and  play  cards 
and  bet  high.  A  green  American  lad  '11  be  a  fine  pigeon  for 
them  to  pluck.  You  may  as  well  tell  him,  Ann;  you  know 
you  came  here  to  do  it." 

"  Yes,  I  did,"  she  admitted.  "  I  don't  want  you  to  seem  not 
to  know  what  people  are  up  to  and  what  they  expect." 

That  little  note  of  involuntary  defense  was  a  dangerous  thing 
for  Tembarom.  He  drew  nearer. 

"You  don't  want  them  to  take  me  for  a  fool,  Little  Ann. 
You  're  standing  up  for  me ;  that 's  it." 

"You  can  stand  up  for  yourself,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,  if 
you  're  not  taken  by  surprise,"  she  said  confidently.  "  If  you 
understand  things  a  bit,  you  won't  be." 

His  feelings  almost  overpowered  him. 

"  God  bless  your  dear  little  soul !  "  he  broke  out.  "  Say,  if 
this  goes  on,  that  dog  of  your  grandmother's  would  n't  have  a 
show,  Ann.  I  should  bite  him  before  he  could  bite  me." 

"  I  won't  go  on  if  you  can't  be  sensible,  Mr.  Temple  Bar- 
holm.  I  shall  just  go  away  and  not  come  back  again.  That's 
what  I  shall  do."  Her  tone  was  that  of  a  young  mother. 

He  gave  in  incontinently. 

"  Good  Lord !  no !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  I  '11  do  anything  if 
you  '11  stay.  I  '11  lie  down  on  the  mat  and  not  open  my  mouth. 
Just  sit  here  and  tell  me  things.  I  know  you  won't  let  me 
hold  your  hand,  but  just  let  me  hold  a  bit  of  your  dress  and 
look  at  you  while  you  talk."  He  took  a  bit  of  her  brown  frock 
between  his  fingers  and  held  it,  gazing  at  her  with  all  his  crude 
young  soul  in  his  eyes.  "  Now  tell  me,"  he  added. 


164  T.    TEMBAKOM 

"  There 's  only  one  or  two  things  about  the  people  who  '11 
come  to  Temple  Barholm.  Grandmother's  talked  it  over  with 
me.  She  knew  all  about  those  that  came  in  the  late  Mr.  Temple 
Barholm's  time.  He  used  to  hate  most  of  them." 

"  Then  why  in  thunder  did  he  ask  them  to  come  ?  " 

"He  didn't.  They've  got  clever,  polite  ways  of  asking 
themselves  sometimes.  He  couldn't  bear  the  Countess  of  Mal- 
lowe.  She'll  come.  Grandmother  says  you  may  be  sure  of 
that." 

"  What  '11  she  come  for?  " 

Little  Ann's  pause  and  contemplation  of  him  were  fraught 
with  thoughtfulness. 

"  She  '11  come  for  you,"  at  last  she  said. 

"  She  's  got  a  daughter  she  thinks  ought  to  have  been  married 
eight  years  ago,"  announced  Hutchinson. 

Tembarom  pulled  at  the  bit  of  brown  tweed  he  held  as  though 
it  were  a  drowning  man's  straw. 

"  Don't  you,'  drive  me  to  drink,  Ann,"  he  said.  "  I  'm 
frightened.  Your  grandmother  will  have  to  lend  me  the  dog." 

This  was  a  flightiness  which  Little  Ann  did  not  encourage. 

"Lady  Joan  —  that's  her  daughter  —  is  very  grand  and 
haughty.  She's  a  great  beauty.  You'll  look  at  her,  but  per 
haps  she  won't  look  at  you.  But  it 's  not  her  I  'm  troubled 
about.  I  'm  thinking  of  Captain  Palliser  and  men  like  him." 

"Who 'she?" 

"  He 's  one  of  those  smooth,  clever  ones  that 's  always  getting 
up  some  company  or  other  and  selling  the  stock.  He'll  want 
you  to  know  his  friends  and  he  '11  try  to  lead  you  his  way." 

As  Tembarom  held  to  his  bit  of  her  dress,  his  eyes  were 
adoring  ones,  which  was  really  not  to  be  wondered  at.  She 
was  adorable  as  her  soft,  kind,  wonderfully  maternal  girl  face 
tried  to  control  itself  so  that  it  should  express  only  just  enough 
to  help  and  nothing  to  disturb. 

"I  don't  want  him  to  spoil  you.     I  don't  want  anything  to 
make  you  —  different.     I  could  n't  bear  it." 
He  pulled  the  bit  of  dress  pleadingly. 
"  Why,  Little  Ann  ?  "  he  implored  quite  low. 
"Because,"  she  said,  feeling  that  perhaps  she  was  rash  — 


T.    TEMBAROM  165 

"  because  if  you  were  different,  you  would  n't  be  T.  Tembarom ; 
and  it  was  T.  Tembarom  that  —  that  was  T.  Tembarom,"  she 
finished  hastily. 

He  bent  his  head  down  to  the  bit  of  tweed  and  kissed  it'. 

"  You  just  keep  looking  after  me  like  that/'  he  said,  "  and 
there 's  not  one  of  them  can  get  away  with  me." 

She  got  up,  and  he  rose  with  her.  There  was  a  touch  of  fire 
in  the  forget-me-not  blue  of  her  eyes. 

"  Just  you  let  them  see  —  just  you  let  them  see  that  you  're 
not  one  they  can  hold  light  and  make  use  of."  But  there  she 
stopped  short,  looking  up  at  him.  He  was  looking  down  at  her 
with  a  kind  of  matureness  in  his  expression.  "  I  need  n't  be 
afraid,"  she  said.  "You  can  take  care  of  yourself;  I  ought 
to  have  known  that." 

"  You  did,"  he  said,  smiling ;  "  but  you  wanted  to  sort'  of  help 
me.  And  you've  done  it,  by  gee!  just  by  saying  that  thing 
about  T.  Tembarom.  You  set  me  right  on  my  feet.  That 's 
you" 

Before  they  went  away  they  paid  a  visit  to  Strangeways  in 
his  remote,  undisturbed,  and  beautiful  rooms.  They  were  in 
a  wing  of  the  house  untouched  by  any  ordinary  passing  to  and 
fro,  and  the  deep  windows  looked  out  upon  gardens  which  spring 
and  summer  would  crowd  with  loveliness  from  which  clouds  of 
perfume  would  float  up  to  him  on  days  when  the  sun  warmed 
and  the  soft  airs  stirred  the  flowers,  shaking  the  fragrance  from 
their  full  incense-cups.  But  the  white  fog  shut  out  to-day  even 
their  winter  bareness.  There  were  light  and  warmth  inside, 
and  every  added  charm  of  rich  harmony  of  deep  color  and  com 
fort  made  beautiful.  There  were  books  and  papers  waiting  to 
be  looked  over,  but  they  lay  untouched  on  the  writing-table,  and 
Strangeways  was  sitting  close  to  the  biggest  window,  staring 
into  the  fog.  His  eyes  looked  hungry  and  hollow  and  dark. 
Ann  knew  he  was  "  trying  to  remember  "  something. 

When  the  sound  of  footsteps  reached  his  ear,  he  turned  to 
look  at  them,  and  rose  mechanically  at  sight  of  Ann.  But  his 
expression  was  that  of  a  man  aroused  from  a  dream  of  far-off 
places. 


166  T.    TEMBAROM 

"I  remember  you,"  he  said,  but  hesitated  as  though  making 
an  effort  to  recall  something. 

"  Of  course  you  do,"  said  Little  Ann.  "  You  know  me  quite 
well.  I  brought  you  here.  Think  a  bit.  Little  —  Little — " 

"Yes,"  he  broke  forth.  "Of  course,  Little  Ann!  Thank 
God  I  've  not  forgotten."  He  took  her  hand  in  both  his  and 
held  it  tenderly.  "You  have  a  sweet  little  face.  It's  such  a 
wise  little  face ! "  His  voice  sounded  dreamy. 

Ann  drew  him  to  his  chair  with  a  coaxing  laugh  and 
sat  down  by  him. 

"You're  flattering  me.  You  make  me  feel  quite  shy,"  she 
said.  "You  know  him,  too,"  nodding  toward  Tembarom. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  he  replied,  and  he  looked  up  with  a  smile.  "  He 
is  the  one  who  remembers.  You  said  you  did."  He  had  turned 
to  Tembarom. 

"  You  bet  your  life  I  do,"  Tembarom  answered.  "  And  you 
will,  too,  before  long." 

"  If  I  did  not  try  so  hard,"  said  Strangeways,  thoughtfully. 
"  It  seems  as  if  I  were  shut  up  in  a  room,  and  so  many  things 
were  knocking  at  the  doors  —  hundreds  of  them  —  knocking  be 
cause  they  want  to  be  let  in.  I  am  damnably  unhappy  — 
damnably."  He  hung  his  head  and  stared  at  the  floor.  Tem 
barom  put  a  hand  on  his  shoulder  and  gave  him  a  friendly 
shake. 

"Don't  you  worry  a  bit,"  he  said.  "You  take  my  word 
for  it.  It  '11  all  come  back.  I  'm  working  at  it  myself.'^ 
Strangeways  lifted  his  head. 

"  You  are  the  one  I  know  best.  I  trust  you."  But  there  was 
the  beginning  of  a  slight  drag  in  his  voice.  "  I  don't  always 
—  quite  recollect  —  your  name.  Not  quite.  Good  heavens ! 
I  must  n't  forget  that." 

Little  Ann  was  quite  ready. 

"  You  won't,"  she  said,  "  because  it 's  different  from  other 
names.  It  begins  with  a  letter  —  just  a  letter,  and  then  there 
is  the  name.  Think." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  he  said  anxiously. 

Little  Ann  bent  forward  and  fixed  her  eyes  on  his  with  con 
centrated  suggestion.  They  had  never  risked  confusing  him 


T.   TEMBAEOM  167 

by  any  mention  of  the  new  name.  She  began  to  repeat  letters 
of  the  alphabet  slowly  and  distinctly  until  she  reached  the  letter 
T. 

"  T,"  she  ended  with  much  emphasis  — "  E.  S.  T." 

His  expression  cleared  itself. 

"T,"  he  repeated.  "T  — Tembarom.  E,  S,  T.  How 
clever  you  are !  " 

Little  Ann's  gaze  concentrated  itself  still  more  intently. 

"  Now  you  '11  never  forget  it  again,"  she  said,  "  because  of 
the  T.  You  '11  say  the  other  letters  until  you  come  to  it.  E, 
S,  T." 

"  T.  Tembarom,"  he  ended  relievedly.  "  How  you  help  me !  " 
He  took  her  hand  and  kissed  it  very  gently. 

"  We  are  all  going  to  help  you,"  Ann  soothed  him,  "  T. 
Tembarom  most  of  all." 

"  Say,"  Tembarom  broke  out  in  an  aside  to  her,  "  I  'm  going 
to  come  here  and  try  things  on  him  every  day.  When  it  seems 
like  he  gets  on  to  something,  however  little  a  thing  it  is,  I  'm 
going  to  follow  it  up  and  see  if  it  won't  get  somewhere." 

Ann  nodded. 

"  There  '11  be  something  some  day,"  she  said.  "  Are  you 
quite  comfortable  here  ?  "  she  asked  aloud  to  Strangeways. 

"  Very  comfortable,  thank  you,"  he  answered  courteously. 
"  They  are  beautiful  rooms.  They  are  furnished  with  such  fine 
old  things.  This  is  entirely  Jacobean.  It  's  quite  perfect." 
He  glanced  about  him.  "  And  so  quiet.  No  one  comes  in  here 
but  my  man,  and  he  is  a  very  nice  chap.  I  never  had  a  man 
who  knew  his  duties  better." 

Little  Ann  and  Tembarom  looked  at  each  other. 

"  I  should  n't  be  a  bit  surprised,"  she  said  after  they  had 
left  the  room,  "if  it  wouldn't  be  a  good  thing  to  get  Pear 
son  to  try  to  talk  to  him  now  and  then.  He  's  been  used  to  a 
man-servant." 

"  Yes,"  answered  Tembarom.  "  Pearson  did  n't  rattle  him, 
you  bet  your  life." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

E  could  not  persuade  them  to  remain  to  take 
lunch  with  him.  The  firmness  of  Hutchin- 
son's  declination  was  not  unconnected  with 
a  private  feeling  that  "them  footmen  chaps 
'u'd  be  on  the  lookout  to  see  the  way  you 
handled  every  bite  you  put  in  your  mouth." 
He  couldn't  have  stood  it,  dang  their  impu 
dence  !  Little  Ann,  on  her  part,  frankly  and 
calmly  said,  "  It  would  n't  do."  That  was 
all,  and  evidently  covered  everything. 
After  they  had  gone,  the  fog  lifted  somewhat,  but  though  it 
withdrew  from  the  windows,  it  remained  floating  about  in 
masses,  like  huge  ghosts,  among  the  trees  of  the  park.  When 
Tembarom  sat  down  alone  to  prolong  his  lunch  with  the  aid  of 
Burrill  and  the  footmen,  he  was  confronted  by  these  unearthly 
shapes  every  time  he  lifted  his  eyes  to  the  window  he  faced 
from  his  place  at  the  table.  It  was  an  outlook  which  did  not  in 
spire  to  cheerfulness,  and  the  fact  that  Ann  and  her  father 
were  going  back  to  Manchester  and  later  to  America  left  him 
without  even  the  simple  consolation  of  a  healthy  appetite. 
Things  were  bound  to  get  better  after  a  while ;  they  were  bound 
to.  A  fellow  would  be  a  fool  if  he  could  n't  fix  it  somehow  so 
that  he  could  enjoy  himself,  with  money  to  burn.  If  you  made 
up  your  mind  you  couldn't  stand  the  way  things  were,  you 
didn't  have  to  lie  down  under  them,  with  a  thousand  or  so 
"  per  "  coming  in.  You  could  fix  it  so  that  it  would  be  differ 
ent.  By  jinks !  there  was  n't  any  law  against  your  giving  it  all 
to  the  church  but  just  enough  to  buy  a  flat  in  Harlem  out 
right,  if  you  wanted  to.  But  you  weren't  going  to  run  crazy 
and  do  a  lot  of  fool  things  in  a  minute,  and  be  sorry  the  rest 
of  your  life.  Money  was  money.  And  first  and  foremost 
there  was  Ann,  with  her  round  cheeks  flushed  and  her  voice 

168 


T.    TEMBAKOM  169 

all  sweet  and  queer,  saying,  "You  wouldn't  be  T.  Tembarom; 
and  it  was  T.  Tembarom  that  —  that  was  T.  Tembarom." 

He  couldn't  help  knowing  what  she  had  begun  to  say,  and 
his  own  face  flushed  as  he  thought  of  it.  He  was  at  that  time 
of  life  when  there  generally  happens  to  be  one  center  about 
which  the  world  revolves.  The  creature  who  passes  through 
this  period  of  existence  without  watching  it  revolve  about  such 
a  center  has  missed  an  extraordinary  and  singularly  developing 
experience.  It  is  sometimes  happy,  often  disastrous,  but  always 
more  or  less  developing.  Speaking  calmly,  detachedly,  but  not 
cynically,  it  is  a  phase.  During  its  existence  it  is  the  blood  in 
the  veins,  the  sight  of  the  eyes,  the  beat  of  the  pulse,  the  throb 
of  the  heart.  It  is  also  the  day  and  the  night,  the  sun,  the 
moon,  and  the  stars,  heaven  and  hell,  the  entire  universe.  And 
it  does  n't  matter  in  the  least  to  any  one  but  the  creatures  liv 
ing  through  it.  T.  Tembarom  was  in  the  midst  of  it.  There 
was  Ann.  There  was  this  new  crazy  thing  which  had  happened 
to  him — "this  fool  thing/'  as  he  called  it.  There  was  this 
monstrous,  magnificent  house, —  he  knew  it  was  magnificent, 
though  it  was  n't  his  kind, —  there  was  old  Palford  and  his 
solemn  talk  about  ancestors  and  the  name  of  Temple  Barholm. 
It  always  reminded  him  of  how  ashamed  he  had  been  in  Brook 
lyn  of  the  "Temple  Temple"  and  how  he  had  told  lies  to 
prevent  the  fellows  finding  out  about  it.  And  there  was  sev 
enty  thousand  pounds  a  year,  and  there  was  Ann,  who  looked 
as  soft  as  a  baby, —  Good  Lord !  how  soft  she  'd  feel  if  you  got 
her  in  your  arms  and  squeezed  her !  —  and  yet  was  somehow 
strong  enough  to  keep  him  just  where  she  wanted  him  to  stay 
and  believed  he  ought  to  stay  until  "  he  had  found  out."  That 
was  it.  She  was  n't  doing  it  for  any  fool  little  idea  of  making 
herself  seem  more  important:  she  just  believed  it.  She  was 
doing  it  because  she  wanted  to  let  him  "  have  his  chance,"  just 
as  if  she  were  his  mother  instead  of  the  girl  he  was  clean  crazy 
about.  His  chance !  He  laughed  outright  —  a  short,  confi 
dent  laugh  which  startled  Burrill  exceedingly. 

When  he  went  back  to  the  library  and  lighted  his  pipe  he  be 
gan  to  stride  up  and  down  as  he  continued  to  think  it  over. 

"  I   wish   she   was  as   sure   as   I   am,"   he   said.     "  I   wish 


170  T.    TEMBAEOM 

she  was  as  sure  of  me  as  I  am  of  myself  —  and  as  I 
am  of  her."  He  laughed  the  short,  confident  laugh  again.  "  I 
wish  she  was  as  sure  as  I  am  of  us  both.  We  're  all  right. 
I  've  got  to  get  through  this,  and  find  out  what  it 's  best  to 
do,  and  I  've  got  to  show  her.  When  I  've  had  my  chance  good 
and  plenty,  us  two  for  little  old  New  York!  Gee!  won't  it  be 
fine !  "  he  exclaimed  imaginatively.  "  Her  going  over  her  bills, 
looking  like  a  peach  of  a  baby  that 's  trying  to  knit  its  brows, 
and  adding  up,  and  thinking  she  ought  to  economize.  She  'd 
do  it  if  we  had  ten  million."  He  laughed  outright  joyfully. 
"  Good  Lord !  I  should  kiss  her  to  death !  " 

The  simplest  process  of  ratiocination  would  lead  to  a  realiza 
tion  of  the  fact  that  though  he  was  lonely  and  uncomfortable, 
he  was  not  in  the  least  pathetic  or  sorry  for  himself.  His  nor 
mal  mental  and  physical  structure  kept  him  steady  on  his 
feet,  and  his  practical  and  unsentimental  training,  combining 
itself  with  a  touch  of  iron  which  centuries  ago  had  expressed 
itself  through  some  fighting  Temple  Barholm  and  a  medium  of 
battle-axes,  crossbows,  and  spears,  did  the  rest. 

"  It  'd  take  more  than  this  to  get  me  where  I  'd  be  down 
and  out.  I  'm  feeling  fine,"  he  said.  "  I  believe  I  '11  go  and 
'  take  a  walk,'  as  Palf ord  says." 

The  fog-wreaths  in  the  park  were  floating  away,  and  he 
went  out  grinning  and  whistling,  giving  Burrill  and  the  foot 
man  a  nod  as  he  passed  them  with  a  springing  young  stride. 
He  got  the  door  open  so  quickly  that  he  left  them  behind  him 
frustrated  and  staring  at  each  other. 

"  It  was  n't  our  fault,"  said  Burrill,  gloomily.  "  He  's  never 
had  a  door  opened  for  him  in  his  life.  This  won't  do  for 
me." 

He  was  away  for  about  an  hour,  and  came  back  in  the  best  of 
spirits.  He  had  found  out  that  there  was  something  in  "tak 
ing  a  walk  "  if  a  fellow  had  nothing  else  to  do.  The  park  was 
"fine,"  and  he  had  never  seen  anything  like  it.  When  there 
were  leaves  on  the  trees  and  the  grass  and  things  were  green, 
it  would  be  better  than  Central  Park  itself.  You  could  have 
base-ball  matches  in  it.  What  a  cinch  it  would  be  if  you 
charged  gate-money!  But  he  supposed  you  couldn't  if  it  be- 


T.    TEMBAEOM  171. 

longed  to  you  and  you  had  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
a  year.  You  had  to  get  used  to  that.  But  it  did  seem  a  fool 
business  to  have  all  that  land  and  not  make  a  cent  out  of  it. 
If  it  was  just  outside  New  York  and  you  cut  it  up  into  lots, 
you'd  just  pile  it  up.  He  was  quite  innocent  —  calamitously 
innocent  and  commercial  and  awful  in  his  views.  Thoughts 
such  as  these  had  been  crammed  into  his  brain  by  life  ever 
since  he  had  gone  down  the  staircase  of  the  Brooklyn  tenement 
with  his  twenty-five  cents  in  his  ten-year-old  hand. 

The  stillness  of  the  house  seemed  to  have  accentuated  itself 
when  he  returned  to  it.  His  sense  of  it  let  him  down  a  little 
as  he  entered.  The  library  was  like  a  tomb  —  a  comfortable 
luxurious  tomb  with  a  bright  fire  in  it.  A  new  Punch  and 
the  morning  papers  had  been  laid  upon  a  table  earlier  in  the 
day,  and  he  sat  down  to  look  at  them. 

"  I  guess  about  fifty-seven  or  eight  of  the  hundred  and  thirty- 
six  hours  have  gone  by,"  he  said.  "But,  gee!  ain't  it  lone 
some  ! " 

He  sat  so  still  trying  to  interest  himself  in  "  London  Day  by 
Day "  in  the  morning  paper  that  the  combination  of  his  ex 
ercise  in  the  fresh  air  and  the  warmth  of  the  fire  made  him 
drowsy.  He  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  closed  his  eyes 
without  being  aware  that  he  did  so.  He  was  on  the  verge  of  a 
doze. 

He  remained  upon  the  verge  for  a  few  minutes,  and  then  a 
soft,  rustling  sound  made  him  open  his  eyes. 

An  elderly  little  lady  had  timidly  entered  the  room.  She 
was  neatly  dressed  in  an  old-fashioned  and  far-from-new  black 
silk  dress,  with  a  darned  lace  collar  and  miniature  brooch  at  her 
neck.  She  had  also  thin,  gray  side-ringlets  dangling  against 
her  cheeks  from  beneath  a  small,  black  lace  cap  with  pale- 
purple  ribbons  on  it.  She  had  most  evidently  not  expected  to 
find  any  one  in  the  room,  and,  having  seen  Tembarom,  gave  a 
half-frightened  cough. 

"I  —  I  beg  your  pardon,"  she  faltered.  " I  really  did  not 
mean  to  intrude  —  really." 

Tembarom  jumped  up,  awkward,  but  good-natured.  Was 
she  a  kind  of  servant  who  was  a  lady  ? 


172  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  Oh,  that 's  all  right,"  he  said. 

But  she  evidently  did  not  feel  that  it  was  all  right.  She 
looked  as  though  she  felt  that  she  had  been  caught  doing 
something' wrong,  and  must  properly  propitiate  by  apology. 

"  I  'm  so  sorry.  I  thought  you  had  gone  out  —  Mr.  Temple 
Barholm." 

"  I  did  go  out  —  to  take  a  walk ;  but  I  came  in." 

Having  been  discovered  in  her  overt  act,  she  evidently  felt 
that  duty  demanded  some  further  ceremony  from  her.  She 
approached  him  very  timidly,  but  with  an  exquisite,  little  elderly 
early- Victorian  manner.  She  was  of  the  most  astonishingly 
perfect  type,  though  Tembarom  was  not  aware  of  the  fact. 
The  manner,  a  century  earlier,  would  have  expressed  itself 
in  a  curtsy. 

"It  is  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,  isn't  it?"  she  inquired. 

"Yes;  it  has  been  for  the  last  few  weeks,"  he  answered, 
wondering  why  she  seemed  so  in  awe  of  him  and  wishing  she 
didn't. 

"  I  ought  to  apologize  for  being  here,"  she  began. 

"  Say,  don't,  please ! "  he  interrupted.  "  What  I  feel  is, 
that  it  ought  to  be  up  to  me  to  apologize  for  being  here." 

She  was  really  quite  flurried  and  distressed. 

"  Oh,  please,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm !  "  she  fluttered,  proceed 
ing  to  explain  hurriedly,  as  though  he  without  doubt  under 
stood  the  situation.  "I  should  of  course  have  gone  away  at 
once  after  the  late  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  died,  but  —  but  I 
really  had  nowhere  to  go  —  and  was  kindly  allowed  to  remain 
until  about  two  months  ago,  when  I  went  to  make  a  visit.  I 
fully  intended  to  remove  my  little  belongings  before  you  ar 
rived,  but  I  was  detained  by  illness  and  could  not  return  until 
this  morning  to  pack  up.  I  understood  you  were  in  the  park, 
and  I  remembered  I  had  left  my  knitting-bag  here."  She 
glanced  nervously  about  the  room,  and  seemed  to  catch  sight  of 
something  on  a  remote  corner  table.  "  Oh,  there  it  is.  May 
I  take  it  ?  "  she  said,  looking  at  him  appealingly.  "  It  was  a 
kind  present  from  a  dear  lost  friend,  and  —  and — "  She 
paused,  seeing  his  puzzled  and  totally  non-comprehending  air. 
It  was  plainly  the  first  moment  it  had  dawned  upon  her  that 


T.    TEMBAROM  173 

he  did  not  know  what  she  was  talking  about.  She  took  a  small, 
alarmed  step  toward  him. 

"  Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon,"  she  exclaimed  in  delicate  anguish. 
"  I  'm  afraid  you  don't  know  who  I  am.  Perhaps  Mr.  Palford 
forgot  to  mention  me.  Indeed,  why  should  he  mention  me? 
There  were  so  many  more  important  things.  I  am  a  sort 
of  distant  —  very  distant  relation  of  yours.  My  name  is  Alicia 
Temple  Barholm." 

Tembarom  was  relieved.  But  she  actually  hadn't  made  a 
move  toward  the  knitting-bag.  She  seemed  afraid  to  do  it  un 
til  he  gave  her  permission.  He  walked  over  to  the  corner  table 
and  brought  it  to  her,  smiling  broadly. 

"  Here  it  is,"  he  said.  "  I  'm  glad  you  left  it.  I  'm  very 
happy  to  be  acquainted  with  you,  Miss  Alicia." 

He  was  glad  just  to  see  her  looking  up  at  him  with  her 
timid,  refined,  intensely  feminine  appeal.  Why  she  vaguely 
brought  back  something  that  reminded  him  of  Ann  he  could  not 
have  told.  He  knew  nothing  whatever  of  types  early- Victorian 
or  late. 

He  took  her  hand,  evidently  to  her  greatest  possible  amaze 
ment,  and  shook  it  heartily.  She  knew  nothing  whatever  of 
the  New  York  street  type,  and  it  made  her  gasp  for  breath, 
but  naturally  with  an  allayed  terror. 

"  Gee ! "  he  exclaimed  whole-heartedly,  "  I  'm  glad  to  find 
out  I  've  got  a  relation.  I  thought  I  had  n't  one  in  the  world. 
Won't  you  sit  down?'5  He  was  drawing  her  toward  his  own 
easy-chair.  But  he  really  didn't  know,  she  was  agitatedly 
thinking.  She  really  must  tell  him.  He  seemed  so  good 
tempered  and  —  and  different.  She  herself  was  not  aware  of 
the  enormous  significance  which  lay  in  that  word  "  different." 
There  must  be  no  risk  of  her  seeming  to  presume  upon  his  lack 
of  knowledge. 

"  It  is  most  kind  of  you,"  she  said  with  grateful  emphasis, 
"but  I  mustn't  sit  down  and  detain  you.  I  can  explain  in  a 
few  words  —  if  I  may." 

He  positively  still  held  her  hand  in  the  oddest,  natural,  boyish 
way,  and  before  she  knew  what  she  was  doing  he  had  made  her 
take  the  chair  —  quite  made  her. 


174  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  Well,  just  sit  down  and  explain,"  he  said.  "  I  wish  to 
thunder  you  would  detain  me.  Take  all  the  time  you  like.  I 
want  to  hear  all  about  it  —  honest  Injun." 

There  was  a  cushion  in  the  chair,  and  as  he  talked,  he  pulled 
it  out  and  began  to  arrange  it  behind  her,  still  in  the  most 
natural  and  matter-of-fact  way  —  so  natural  and  matter-of-fact, 
indeed,  that  its  very  natural  matter-of-f  actedness  took  her  breath 
away. 

"  Is  that  fixed  all  right?  "  he  asked. 

Being  a  little  lady,  she  could  only  accept  his  extraordinary 
friendliness  with  grateful  appreciation,  though  she  could  not 
help  fluttering  a  little  in  her  bewilderment. 

"  Oh,  thank  you,  thank  you,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,"  she  said. 

He  sat  down  on  the  square  ottoman  facing  her,  and  leaned  for 
ward  with  an  air  of  making  a  frank  confession. 

"  Guess  what  I  was  thinking  to  myself  two  minutes  before 
you  came  in  ?  I  was  thinking,  *  Lord,  I  'm  lonesome  —  just 
sick  lonesome ! '  And  then  I  opened  my  eyes  and  looked  — 
and  there  was  a  relation !  Hully  gee !  I  call  that  luck !  " 

"  Dear  me !  "  she  said,  shyly  delighted.  "  Do  you,  Mr.  Temple 
Barhohn  —  really  f  " 

Her  formal  little  way  of  saying  his  name  was  like  Ann's. 

"  Do  I  ?  I  'm  tickled  to  death.  My  mother  died  when  1 
was  ten,  and  I  've  never  had  any  women  kin-folks/' 

"  Poor  bo  — "  She  had  nearly  said  "  Poor  boy !  "  and  only 
checked  the  familiarity  just  in  time  — "  Poor  Mr.  Temple  Bar- 
holm  ! " 

"  Say,  what  are  we  two  to  each  other,  anyhow  ? "  He  put 
it  to  her  with  great  interest. 

"  It  is  a  very  distant  relationship,  if  it  is  one  at  all,"  she 
answered.  "  You  see,  I  was  only  a  second  cousin  to  the  late 
Mr.  Temple  Barholm,  and  I  had  not  really  the  slightest  claim 
upon  him."  She  placed  pathetic  emphasis  on  the  fact.  "  It 
was  most  generous  of  him  to  be  so  kind  to  me.  When  my  poor 
father  died  and  I  was  left  quite  penniless,  he  gave  me  a  —  a 
sort  of  home  here." 

"  A  sort  of  home  ?  "  Tembarom  repeated. 

"  My  father  was  a  clergyman  in  very  straitened  circumstances. 


T.    TEMBAROM  175 

We  had  barely  enough  to  live  upon  —  barely.  He  could  leave 
me  nothing.  It  actually  seemed  as  if  I  should  have  to  starve 
—  it  did,  indeed."  There  was  a  delicate  quiver  in  her  voice. 
"  And  though  the  late  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  had  a  great  antip 
athy  to  ladies,  he  was  so  —  so  noble  as  to  send  word  to  me 
that  there  were  a  hundred  and  fifty  rooms  in  his  house,  and 
that  if  I  would  keep  out  of  his  way  I  might  live  in  one  of 
them." 

"  That  was  noble,"  commented  her  distant  relative. 

"  Oh,  yes,  indeed,  especially  when  one  considers  how  he  dis 
liked  the  opposite  sex  and  what  a  recluse  he  was.  He  could 
not  endure  ladies.  I  scarcely  ever  saw  him.  My  room  was  in 
quite  a  remote  wing  of  the  house,  and  I  never  went  out  if  I 
knew  he  was  in  the  park.  I  was  most  careful.  And  when 
he  died  of  course  I  knew  I  must  go  away." 

Tembarom  Avas  watching  her  almost  tenderly. 

"  Where  did  you  go  ?  " 

"  To  a  kind  clergyman  in  Shropshire  who  thought  he  might 
help  me." 

"  How  was  he  going  to  do  it  ?  " 

She  answered  with  an  effort  to  steady  a  somewhat  lowered 
and  hesitating  voice. 

"  There  was  near  his  parish  a  very  nice  —  charity,"  —  her 
breath  caught  itself  pathetically, — "  some  most  comfortable 
almshouses  for  decayed  gentlewomen.  He  thought  he  might 
be  able  to  use  his  influence  to  get  me  into  one."  She  paused 
and  smiled,  but  her  small,  wrinkled  hands  held  each  other 
closely. 

Tembarom  looked  away.  He  spoke  as  though  to  himself,  and 
without  knowing  that  he  was  thinking  aloud. 

"Almshouses!"  he  said.  "Wouldn't  that  jolt  you!"  He 
turned  on  her  again  with  a  change  to  cheerful  concern.  "  Say, 
that  cushion  of  yours  ain't  comfortable.  I  'm  going  to  get  you 
another  one."  He  jumped  up  and,  taking  one  from  a  sofa, 
began  to  arrange  it  behind  her  dexterously. 

"  But  I  must  n't  trouble  you  any  longer.  I  must  go,  really," 
she  said,  half  rising  nervously.  He  put  a  hand  on  her  shoulder 
and  made  her  sit  again. 


176  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  Go  where  ?  "  he  said.  "  Just  lean  back  on  that  cushion, 
Miss  Alicia.  For  the  next  few  minutes  this  is  going  to  be  my 
funeral." 

She  was  at  once  startled  and  uncomprehending.  What  an 
extraordinary  expression!  What  could  it  mean? 

"  F  —  funeral  ?  "  she  stammered. 

Suddenly  he  seemed  somehow  to  have  changed.  He  looked 
as  serious  as  though  he  was  beginning  to  think  out  something 
all  at  once.  What  was  he  going  to  say? 

"  That 's  New  York  slang,"  he  answered.  "  It  means  that 
I  want  to  explain  myself  to  you  and  ask  a  few  questions." 

"  Certainly,  certainly,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm." 

He  leaned  his  back  against  the  mantel,  and  went  into  the 
matter  practically. 

"First  off,  haven't  you  any  folks?"  Then,  answering  her 
puzzled  look,  added,  "I  mean  relations." 

Miss  Alicia  gently  shook  her  head. 

"  No  sisters  or  brothers  or  uncles  or  aunts  or  cousins  ?  " 

She  shook  her  head  again. 

He  hesitated  a  moment,  putting  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and 
taking  them  out  again  awkwardly  as  he  looked  down  at  her. 

"  Now  here 's  where  I  'm  up  against  it,"  he  went  on.  "  I 
don't  want  to  be  too  fresh  or  to  butt  in,  but  —  didn't  old 
Temple  Barholm  leave  you  any  money  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no ! "  she  exclaimed.  "  Dear  me !  no !  I  could  n't 
possibly  expect  such  a  thing." 

He  gazed  at  her  as  though  considering  the  situation. 
"Couldn't  you?  "he  said. 

There  was  an  odd  reflection  in  his  eyes,  and  he  seemed  to 
consider  her  and  the  situation  again. 

"Well,"  he  began  after  his  pause,  "what  I  want  to  know  is 
what  you  expect  me  to  do." 

There  was  no  unkindness  in  his  manner,  in  fact,  quite  the 
contrary,  even  when  he  uttered  what  seemed  to  Miss  Alicia  these 
awful,  unwarranted  words.  As  though  she  had  forced  herself 
into  his  presence  to  make  demands  upon  his  charity!  They 
made  her  tremble  and  turn  pale  as  she  got  up  quickly,  shocked 
and  alarmed. 


T.   TEMBAEOM  177 

"  Oh,  nothing !  nothing !  nothing  whatever,  Mr.  Temple  Bar- 
holm  !  "  she  exclaimed,  her  agitation  doing  its  best  to  hide  itself 
behind  a  fine  little  dignity.  He  saw  in  an  instant  that  his 
style  of  putting  it  had  been  "  'way  off,"  that  his  ignorance  had 
betrayed  him,  that  she  had  misunderstood  him  altogether.  He 
almost  jumped  at  her. 

"Oh,  say,  I  didn't  mean  that!"  he  cried  out.  "For  the 
Lord's  sake !  don't  think  I  'm  such  a  Tenderloin  tough  as  to 
make  a  break  like  that !  Not  on  your  life !  " 

Never  since  her  birth  had  a  male  creature  looked  at  Miss 
Alicia  with  the  appeal  which  showed  itself  in  his  eyes  as  he 
actually  put  his  arm  half  around  her  shoulders,  like  a  boy  beg 
ging  a  favor  from  his  mother  or  his  aunt. 

"What  I  meant  was — "  He  broke  off  and  began  again 
quite  anxiously,  "say,  just  as  a  favor,  will  you  sit  down  again 
and  let  me  tell  you  what  I  did  mean  ?  " 

It  was  that  natural,  warm,  boyish  way  which  overcame  her 
utterly.  It  reminded  her  of  the  only  boy  she  had  ever  really 
known,  the  one  male  creature  who  had  allowed  her  to  be  fond 
of  him.  There  was  moisture  in  her  eyes  as  she  let  him  put 
her  back  into  her  chair.  When  he  had  done  it,  he  sat  down  on 
the  ottoman  again  and  poured  himself  forth. 

"  You  know  what  kind  of  a  chap  I  am.  No,  you  don't,  either. 
You  mayn't  know  a  thing  about  me;  and  I  want  to  tell  you. 
I'm  so  different  from  everything  you've  ever  known  that  I 
scare  you.  And  no  wonder.  It 's  the  way  I  've  lived.  If  you 
knew,  you  'd  understand  what  I  was  thinking  of  when  I  spoke 
just  now.  I  've  been  cold,  I  've  been  hungry,  I  've  walked  the 
wet  streets  on  my  uppers.  I  know  all  about  going  without. 
And  do  you  expect  that  I  am  going  to  let  a  —  a  little  thing 
like  you  —  go  away  from  here  without  friends  and  without 
money  on  the  chance  of  getting  into  an  almshouse  that  is  n't  va 
cant?  Do  you  expect  that  of  me?  Not  on  your  life!  That 
was  what  I  meant." 

Miss  Alicia  quivered;  the  pale-purple  ribbons  on  her  little 
lace  cap  quivered. 

"  I  have  n't,"  she  said,  and  the  fine  little  dignity  was  piteous, 
"a  shadow  of  a  claim  upon  you."  It  was  necessary  for  her  to 


178  T.    TEMBAROM 

produce  a  pocket-handkerchief.  He  took  it  from  her,  and 
touched  her  eyes  us  softly  as  though  she  were  a  baby. 

"  Claim  nothing ! "  he  said.  "  I  've  got  a  claim  on  you. 
I  'm  going  to  stake  one  out  right  now."  He  got  up  and  ges 
ticulated,  taking  in  the  big  room  and  its  big  furniture.  "  Look 
at  all  this!  It  fell  on  me  like  a  thunderbolt.  It's  nearly 
knocked  the  life  out  of  me.  I  'm  like  a  lost  cat  on  Broadway. 
You  can't  go  away  and  leave  me,  Miss  Alicia ;  it 's  your  duty 
to  stay.  You've  just  got  to  stay  to  take  care  of  me."  He 
came  over  to  her  with  a  wheedling  smile.  "  I  never  was  taken 
care  of  in  my  life.  Just  be  as  noble  to  me  as  old  Temple 
Barholm  was  to  you :  give  me  a  sort  of  home." 

If  a  little  gentlewoman  could  stare,  it  might  be  said  that 
Miss  Alicia  stared  at  him.  She  trembled  with  amazed  emo 
tion. 

"Do  you  mean — "  Despite  all  he  had  said,  she  scarcely 
dared  to  utter  the  words  lest,  after  all,  she  might  be  taking  for 
granted  more  than  it  was  credible  could  be  true.  "  Can  you 
mean  that  if  I  stayed  here  with  you  it  would  make  Temple 
Barholm  seem  more  like  home?  Is  it  possible  you  —  you 
mean  that?" 

"  I  mean  just  that  very  thing." 

It  was  too  much  for  her.  Finely  restrained  little  elderly 
gentlewoman  as  she  was,  she  openly  broke  down  under  it. 

"  It  can't  be  true !  "  she  ejaculated  shakily.  "  It  is  n't  pos 
sible.  It  is  too  —  too  beautiful  and  kind.  Do  forgive  me !  I 
c-a-n't  help  it."  She  burst  into  tears. 

She  knew  it  was  most  stupidly  wrong.  She  knew  gentle 
men  did  not  like  tears.  Her  father  had  told  her  that  men 
never  really  forgave  women  who  cried  at  them.  And  here, 
when  her  fate  hung  in  the  balance,  she  was  not  able  to  behave 
herself  with  feminine  decorum. 

Yet  the  new  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  took  it  in  as  matter-of- 
fact  a  manner  as  he  seemed  to  take  everything.  He  stood  by 
her  chair  and  soothed  her  in  his  dear  New  York  voice. 

"  That 's  all  right,  Miss  Alicia,"  he  commented.  "  You  cry 
as  much  as  you  want  to,  just  so  that  you  don't  say  no.  You  've 
been  worried  and  you  're  tired.  I  '11  tell  you  there  's  been  two 


T.    TEMBABOM  179 

or  three  times  lately  when  I  should  like  to  have  cried  myself 
if  I  'd  known  how.  Say,"  he  added  with  a  sudden  outburst  of 
imagination,  "  I  bet  anything  it 's  about  time  you  had  tea." 

The  suggestion  was  so  entirely  within  the  normal  order  of 
things  that  it  made  her  feel  steadier,  and  she  was  able  to  glance 
at  the  clock. 

"  A  cup  of  tea  would  be  refreshing,"  she  said.  "  They  will 
bring  it  in  very  soon,  but  before  the  servants  come  I  must  try 
to  express  — " 

But  before  she  could  express  anything  further  the  tea  ap 
peared.  Burrill  and  a  footman  brought  it  on  splendid  salvers, 
in  massive  urn  and  tea-pot,  with  chaste,  sacrificial  name  flick 
ering,  and  wonderful,  hot  buttered  and  toasted  things  and 
wafers  of  bread  and  butter  attendant.  As  they  crossed  the 
threshold,  the  sight  of  Miss  Alicia's  small  form  enthroned  in 
their  employer's  chair  was  one  so  obviously  unanticipated  that 
Burrill  made  a  step  backward  and  the  footman  almost  lost  the 
firmness  of  his  hold  on  the  smaller  tray.  Each  recovered  him 
self  in  time,  however,  and  not  until  the  tea  was  arranged  upon 
the  table  near  the  fire  was  any  outward  recognition  of  Miss 
Alicia's  presence  made.  Then  Burrill,  pausing,  made  an  an 
nouncement  entirely  without  prejudice : 

"  I  beg  pardon,  sir,  but  Higgins's  cart  has  come  for  Miss 
Temple  Barholm's  box;  he  is  asking  when  she  wants  the  trap." 

"  She  does  n't  want  it  at  all,"  answered  Tembarom.  "  Carry 
her  trunk  up-stairs  again.  She 's  not  going  away." 

The  lack  of  proper  knowledge  contained  in  the  suggestion  that 
Burrill  should  carry  trunks  upstairs  caused  Miss  Alicia  to  quail 
in  secret,  but  she  spoke  with  outward  calm. 

"  No,  Burrill,"  she  said.     "  I  am  not  going  away." 

"Very  good,  Miss,"  Burrill  replied,  and  with  impressive 
civility  he  prepared  to  leave  the  room.  Tembarom  glanced  at 
the  tea-things. 

"  There  's  only  one  cup  here,"  he  said.     "  Bring  one  for  me." 

Burrill's  expression  might  perhaps  have  been  said  to  start 
slightly. 

"Very  good,  sir,"  he  said,  and  made  his  exit.  Miss  Alicia 
was  fluttering  again. 


180  T.    TEMBAKOM 

"  That  cup  was  really  for  you,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,"  she 
ventured. 

"  Well,  now  it 's  for  you,  and  I  've  let  him  know  it,"  replied 
Tembarom. 

"  Oh,  please,"  she  said  in  an  outburst  of  feeling  — "  please 
let  me  tell  you  how  grateful  —  how  grateful  I  am ! " 

But  he  would  not  let  her. 

"  If  you  do,"  he  said,  "  I  '11  tell  you  how  grateful  /  am,  and 
that  '11  be  worse.  No,  that 's  all  fixed  up  between  us.  It  goes. 
We  won't  say  any  more  about  it." 

He  took  the  whole  situation  in  that  way,  as  though  he  was 
assuming  no  responsibility  which  was  not  the  simple,  inevitable 
result  of  their  drifting  across  each  other  —  as  though  it  was 
only  what  any  man  would  have  done,  even  as  though  she  was 
a  sort  of  delightful,  unexpected  happening.  He  turned  to  the 
tray. 

"Say,  that  looks  all  right,  doesn't  it?"  he  said.  "Now 
you  are  here,  I  like  the  way  it  looks.  I  did  n't  yesterday." 

Burrill  himself  brought  the  extra  cup  and  saucer  and  plate. 
He  wished  to  make  sure  that  his  senses  had  not  deceived  him. 
But  there  she  sat  who  through  years  had  existed  discreetly  in 
the  most  unconsidered  rooms  in  an  uninhabited  wing,  knowing 
better  than  to  presume  upon  her  privileges  —  there  she  sat  with 
an  awed  and  rapt  face  gazing  up  at  this  new  outbreak  into 
Temple  Barholm's  and  "  him  joking  and  grinning  as  though  he 
was  as  pleased  as  Punch," 


CHAPTER  XV 


0  employ  the  figure  of  Burrill,  Tembarom  was 
indeed  "  as  pleased  as  Punch."  He  was  one 
of  the  large  number  of  men  who,  apart 
from  all  sentimental  relations,  are  made 
particularly  happy  by  the  kindly  society  of 
women;  who  expand  with  quite  unconscious 
rejoicing  when  a  woman  begins  to  take  care 
of  them  in  one  way  or  another.  The  un 
consciousness  is  a  touching  part  of  the  con 
dition.  The  feminine  nearness  supplies  a  primeval  human 
need.  The  most  complete  of  men,  as  well  as  the  weaklings, 
feel  it.  It  is  a  survival  of  days  when  warm  arms  held  and 
protected,  warm  hands  served,  and  affectionate  voices 
soothed.  An  accomplished  male  servant  may  perform  every 
domestic  service  perfectly,  but  the  fact  that  he  cannot  be  a 
woman  leaves  a  sense  of  lack.  An  accustomed  feminine  warmth 
in  the  surrounding  daily  atmosphere  has  caused  many  a  man  to 
marry  his  housekeeper  or  even  his  cook,  as  circumstances 
prompted. 

Tembarom  had  known  no  woman  well  until  he  had  met  Little 
Ann.  His  feeling  for  Mrs.  Bowse  herself  had  verged  on  affec 
tion,  because  he  would  have  been  fond  of  any  woman  of  decent 
temper  and  kindliness,  especially  if  she  gave  him  opportunities 
to  do  friendly  service.  Little  Ann  had  seemed  the  apotheosis 
of  the  feminine,  the  warmly  helpful,  the  subtly  supporting,  the 
kind.  She  had  been  to  him  an  amazement  and  a  revelation. 
She  had  continually  surprised  him  by  revealing  new  characteris 
tics  which  seemed  to  him  nicer  things  than  he  had  ever  known 
before,  but  which,  if  he  had  been  aware  of  it,  were  not  really 
surprising  at  all.  They  were  only  the  characteristics  of  a  very 
nice  young  feminine  creature. 

181 


182  T.    TEMBAKOM 

The  presence  of  Miss  Alicia,  with  the  long-belated  fashion  of 
her  ringlets  and  her  little  cap,  was  delightful  to  him.  He  felt  as 
though  he  would  like  to  take  her  in  his  arms  and  hug  her.  He 
thought  perhaps  it  was  partly  because  she  was  a  little  like  Ann, 
and  kept  repeating  his  name  in  Ann's  formal  little  way.  Her 
delicate  terror  of  presuming  or  intruding  he  felt  in  its  every 
shade.  Mentally  she  touched  him  enormously.  He  wanted  to 
make  her  feel  that  she  need  not  be  afraid  of  him  in  the  least, 
that  he  liked  her,  that  in  his  opinion  she  had  more  right  in  the 
house  than  he  had.  He  was  a  little  frightened  lest  through 
ignorance  he  should  say  things  the  wrong  way,  as  he  had  said 
that  thing  about  wanting  to  know  what  she  expected  him  to 
do.  What  he  ought  to  have  said  was,  "You're  not  expecting 
me  to  let  that  sort  of  thing  go  on."  It  had  made  him  sick 
when  he  saw  what  a  break  he'd  made  and  that  she  thought 
he  was  sort  of  insulting  her.  The  room  seemed  all  right  now 
that  she  was  in  it.  Small  and  unassuming  as  she  was,  she 
seemed  to  make  it  less  over-sized.  He  didn't  so  much  mind 
the  loftiness  of  the  ceiling,  the  depth  and  size  of  the  windows, 
and  the  walls  covered  with  thousands  of  books  he  knew  noth 
ing  whatever  about.  The  innumerable  books  had  been  an  op 
pressing  feature.  If  he  had  been  one  of  those  "college  guys" 
who  never  could  get  enough  of  books,  what  a  "  cinch "  the 
place  would  have  been  for  him  —  good  as  the  Astor  Library! 
He  had  n't  a  word  to  say  against  books, —  good  Lord !  no, —  but 
even  if  he  'd  had  the  education  and  the  time  to  read,  he  did  n't 
believe  he  was  naturally  that  kind,  anyhow.  You  had  to  be 
"that  kind"  to  know  about  books.  He  didn't  suppose  she  — 
meaning  Miss  Alicia  —  was  learned  enough  to  make  you  throw 
a  fit.  She  did  n't  look  that  way,  and  he  was  mighty  glad  of  it, 
because  perhaps  she  wouldn't  like  him  much  if  she  was.  It 
would  worry  her  when  she  tried  to  talk  to  him  and  found  out 
he  did  n't  know  a  darned  thing  he  ought  to. 

They'd  get  on  together  easier  if  they  could  just  chin  about 
common  sort  of  every-day  things.  But  though  she  did  n't  look 
like  the  Vassar  sort,  he  guessed  that  she  was  not  like  himself: 
she  had  lived  in  libraries  before,  and  books  didn't  frighten 
her.  She  'd  been  born  among  people  who  read  lots  of  them 


T.   TEMBAKOH  183 

and  maybe  could  talk  about  them.  That  was  why  she  some 
how  seemed  to  fit  into  the  room.  He  was  aware  that,  timid 
as  she  was  and  shabby  as  her  neat  dress  looked,  she  fitted  into 
the  whole  place,  as  he  did  not.  She'd  been  a  poor  relative 
and  had  been  afraid  to  death  of  old  Temple  Barholm,  but  she  'd 
not  been  afraid  of  him  because  she  was  n't  his  sort.  She  was  a 
lady;  that  was  what  was  the  matter  with  her.  It  was  what 
made  things  harder  for  her,  too.  It  was  what  made  her  voice 
tremble  when  she  'd  tried  to  seem  so  contented  and  polite  when 
she  'd  talked  about  going  into  one  of  those  "  decayed  alms- 
houses."  As  if  the  old  ladies  were  vegetables  that  had  gone 
wrong,  by  gee!  he  thought. 

He  liked  her  little,  modest,  delicate  old  face  and  her  curls 
and  her  little  cap  with  the  ribbons  so  much  that  he  smiled 
with  a  twinkling  eye  every  time  he  looked  at  her.  He  wanted 
to  suggest  something  he  thought  would  be  mighty  comfortable, 
but  he  was  half  afraid  he  might  be  asking  her  to  do  something 
which  was  n't  "  her  job/'  and  it  might  hurt  her  feelings.  But 
he  ventured  to  hint  at  it. 

"  Has  Burrill  got  to  come  back  and  pour  that  out  ? "  he 
asked,  with  an  awkward  gesture  toward  the  tea-tray.  "  Has  he 
just  got  to  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no,  unless  you  wish  it,"  she  answered.  "  Shall  —  may 
I  give  it  to  you  ?  " 

"Will  you?"  he  exclaimed  delightedly.  "That  would  be 
fine.  I  shall  feel  like  a  regular  Clarence." 

She  was  going  to  sit  at  the  table  in  a  straight-backed  chair, 
but  he  sprang  at  her. 

"  This  big  one  is  more  comfortable,"  he  said,  and  he  dragged 
it  forward  and  made  her  sit  in  it.  "  You  ought  to  have  a  foot 
stool,"  he  added,  and  he  got  one  and  put  it  under  her  feet. 
"  There,  that 's  all  right." 

A  footstool,  as  though  she  were  a  royal  personage  and  he  were 
a  gentleman  in  waiting,  only  probably  gentlemen  in  waiting  did 
not  jump  about  and  look  so  pleased.  The  cheerful  content  of 
his  boyish  face  when  he  himself  sat  down  near  the  table  was  de 
lightful. 

"  Now,"  he  said,  "  we  can  ring  up  for  the  first  act." 


184  T.    TEMBAROM 

She  filled  the  tea-pot  and  held  it  for  a  moment,  and  then  set 
it  down  as  though  her  feelings  were  too  much  for  her. 

"  I  feel  as  if  I  were  in  a  dream/'  she  quavered  happily.  "  I 
do  indeed." 

"  But  it  'a  a  nice  one,  ain't  it  ?  "  he  answered.  "  I  feel  as  if 
I  was  in  two.  Sitting  here  in  this  big  room  with  all  these  fine 
things  about  me,  and  having  afternoon  tea  with  a  relation !  It 
just  about  suits  me.  It  did  n't  feel  like  this  yesterday,  you  bet 
your  life ! " 

"  Does  it  seem  —  nicer  than  yesterday  ? "  she  ventured. 
"Really,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm?" 

"  Nicer ! "  he  ejaculated.  "  It 's  got  yesterday  beaten  to  a 
frazzle." 

It  was  beyond  all  belief.  He  was  speaking  as  though  the 
advantage,  the  relief,  the  happiness,  were  all  on  his  side.  She 
longed  to  enlighten  him. 

"  But  you  can't  realize  what  it  is  to  me,"  she  said  gratefully, 
"to  sit  here,  not  terrified  and  homeless  and  —  a  beggar  any 
more,  with  your  kind  face  before  me.  Do  forgive  me  for  say 
ing  it.  You  have  such  a  kind  young  face,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm. 
And  to  have  an  easy-chair  and  cushions,  and  actually  a  buffet 
brought  for  my  feet ! "  She  suddenly  recollected  herself. 
"  Oh,  I  must  n't  let  your  tea  get  cold,"  she  added,  taking  up 
the  tea-pot  apologetically.  "  Do  you  take  cream  and  sugar,  and 
is  it  to  be  one  lump  or  two  ?  " 

"  I  take  everything  in  sight,"  he  replied  joyously,  "  and  two 
lumps,  please." 

She  prepared  the  cup  of  tea  with  as  delicate  a  care  as  though 
it  had  been  a  sacramental  chalice,  and  when  she  handed  it  to  him 
she  smiled  wistfully. 

"No  one  but  you  ever  thought  of  such  a  thing  as  bringing 
a  buffet  for  my  feet  —  no  one  except  poor  little  Jem,"  she 
said,  and  her  voice  was  wistful  as  well  as  her  smile. 

She  was  obviously  unaware  that  she  was  introducing  an  en 
tirely  new  acquaintance  to  him.  Poor  little  Jem  was  supposed 
to  be  some  one  whose  whole  history  he  knew. 

"  Jem  ? "  he  repeated,  carefully  transferring  a  piece  of  hot 
buttered  crumpet  to  his  plate. 


T.    TEMBAKOM  185 

"Jem  Temple  Barholm,"  she  answered.  "I  say  little  Jem 
because  I  remember  him  only  as  a  child.  I  never  saw  him  after 
he  was  eleven  years  old." 

"Who  was  he?"  he  asked.  The  tone  of  her  voice  and  her 
manner  of  speaking  made  him  feel  that  he  wanted  to  hear 
something  more. 

She  looked  rather  startled  by  his  ignorance.  "  Have  you  — 
have  you  never  heard  of  him  ?  "  she  inquired. 

"  No.     Is  he  another  distant  relation?" 

Her  hesitation  caused  him  to  neglect  his  crumpet,  to  look 
up  at  her.  He  saw  at  once  that  she  wore  the  air  of  a  sensitive 
and  beautifully  mannered  elderly  lady  who  was  afraid  she  had 
made  a  mistake  and  said  something  awkward. 

"  I  am  so  sorry,"  she  apologized.  "  Perhaps  I  ought  not  to 
have  mentioned  him." 

"  Why  should  n't  he  be  mentioned  ?  " 

She  was  embarrassed.  She  evidently  wished  she  had  not 
spoken,  but  breeding  demanded  that  she  should  ignore  the  awk 
wardness  of  the  situation,  if  awkwardness  existed. 

"  Of  course  —  I  hope  your  tea  is  quite  as  you  like  it  —  of 
course  there  is  no  real  reason.  But  —  shall  I  give  you  some 
more  cream  ?  No  ?  You  see,  if  he  had  n't  died,  he — he  would 
have  inherited  Temple  Barholm." 

Now  he  was  interested.     This  was  the  other  chap. 

"  Instead  of  me  ?  "  he  asked,  to  make  sure.  She  endeavored 
not  to  show  embarrassment  and  told  herself  it  did  n't  really  mat 
ter —  to  a  thoroughly  nice  person.  But  — 

"  He  was  the  next  of  kin  —  before  you.  I  'm  so  sorry  I 
did  n't  know  you  had  n't  heard  of  him.  It  seemed  natural  that 
Mr.  Palford  should  have  mentioned  him." 

"  He  did  say  that  there  was  a  young  fellow  who  had  died, 
but  he  did  n't  tell  me  about  him.  I  guess  I  did  n't  ask. 
There  were  such  a  lot  of  other  things.  I  'd  like  to  hear  about 
him.  You  say  you  knew  him  ?  " 

"  Only  when  he  was  a  little  fellow.  Never  after  he  grew  up. 
.Something  happened  which  displeased  my  father.  I  'm  afraid 
papa  was  very  easily  displeased.  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  disliked 
him,  too.  He  would  not  have  him  at  Temple  Barholm." 


186  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  He  had  n't  much  luck  with  his  folks,  had  he  ?  "  remarked 
Tembarom. 

"  He  had  no  luck  with  any  one.  I  seemed  to  be  the  only  per 
son  who  was  fond  of  him,  and  of  course  I  did  n't  count." 

"  I  bet  you  counted  with  him,"  said  Tembarom. 

"  I  do  think  I  did.  Both  his  parents  died  quite  soon  after  he 
was  born,  and  people  who  ought  to  have  cared  for  him  were 
rather  jealous  because  he  stood  so  near  to  Temple  Barholm. 
If  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  had  not  been  so  eccentric  and  bitter, 
everything  would  have  been  done  for  him;  but  as  it  was,  he 
seemed  to  belong  to  no  one.  When  he  came  to  the  vicarage  it 
used  to  make  me  so  happy.  He  used  to  call  me  Aunt  Alicia, 
and  he  had  such  pretty  ways."  She  hesitated  and  looked  quite 
tenderly  at  the  tea-pot,  a  sort  of  shyness  in  her  face.  "  I  am 
sure,"  she  burst  forth,  "I  feel  quite  sure  that  you  will  under 
stand  and  won't  think  it  indelicate ;  but  I  had  thought  so  often 
that  I  should  like  to  have  a  little  boy  —  if  I  had  married," 
she  added  in  hasty  tribute  to  propriety. 

Tembarom's  eyes  rested  on  her  in  a  thoughtfulness  openly 
touched  with  affection.  He  put  out  his  hand  and  patted  hers 
two  or  three  times  in  encouraging  sympathy. 

"  Say,"  he  said  frankly,  "  I  just  believe  every  woman  that 's 
the  real  thing  'd  like  to  have  a  little  boy  —  or  a  little  girl  —  or 
a  little  something  or  other.  That 's  why  pet  cats  and  dogs  have 
such  a  cinch  of  it.  And  there 's  men  that 's  the  same  way.  It 's 
sort  of  nature." 

"  He  had  such  a  high  spirit  and  such  pretty  ways,"  she  said 
again.  "  One  of  his  pretty  ways  was  remembering  to  do  little 
things  to  make  one  comfortable,  like  thinking  of  giving  one  a 
cushion  or  a  buffet  for  one's  feet.  I  noticed  it  so  much  because 
I  had  never  seen  boys  or  men  wait  upon  women.  My  own  dear 
papa  was  used  to  having  women  wait  upon  him  —  bring  his 
slippers,  you  know,  and  give  him  the  best  chair.  He  didn't 
like  Jem's  ways.  He  said  he  liked  a  boy  who  was  a  boy  and 
not  an  affected  nincompoop.  He  was  n't  really  quite  just." 
She  paused  regretfully  and  sighed  as  she  looked  back  into  a 
past  doubtlessly  enriched  with  many  similar  memories  of  "  dear 
papa."  "  Poor  Jem !  Poor  Jem !  "  she  breathed  softly. 


T.    TEMBAROM  187 

Tembarom  thought  that  she  must  have  felt  the  boy's  loss  very 
much,  almost  as  much  as  though  she  had  really  been  his 
mother;  perhaps  more  pathetically  because  she  had  not  been 
his  mother  or  anybody's  mother.  He  could  see  what  a  good  lit 
tle  mother  she  would  have  made,  looking  after  her  children  and 
doing  everything  on  earth  to  make  them  happy  and  com 
fortable,  just  the  kind  of  mother  Ann  would  make,  though  she 
had  not  Ann's  steady  wonder  of  a  little  head  or  her  shrewd  far 
sightedness.  Jem  would  have  been  in  luck  if  he  had  been  her 
son.  It  was  a  darned  pity  he  had  n't  been.  If  he  had,  perhaps 
he  would  not  have  died  young. 

"  Yes,"  he  answered  sympathetically,  "  it 's  hard  for  a  young 
fellow  to  die.  How  old  was  he,  anyhow  ?  I  don't  know." 

"  Not  much  older  than  you  are  now.  It  was  seven  years  ago. 
And  if  he  had  only  died,  poor  dear !  There  are  things  so  much 
worse  than  death." 

"Worse!" 

"  Awful  disgrace  is  worse,"  she  faltered.  She  was  plainly  try 
ing  to  keep  moisture  out  of  her  eyes. 

"  Did  he  get  into  some  bad  mix-up,  poor  fellow  ?  "  If  there 
had  been  anything  like  that,  no  wonder  it  broke  her  up  to  think 
of  him. 

It  surely  did  break  her  up.     She  flushed  emotionally. 

"  The  cruel  thing  was  that  he  did  n't  really  do  what  he  was 
accused  of,"  she  said. 

"He  didn't?" 

"No;  but  he  was  a  ruined  man,  and  he  went  away  to  the 
Klondike  because  he  could  not  stay  in  England.  And  he  was 
killed  —  killed,  poor  boy !  And  afterward  it  was  found  out  that 
he  was  innocent  —  too  late." 

"  Gee !  "  Tembarom  gasped,  feeling  hot  and  cold.  <e  Could 
you  beat  that  for  rotten  luck !  What  was  he  accused  of  ?  " 

Miss  Alicia  leaned  forward  and  spoke  in  a  whisper.  It  was 
too  dreadful  to  speak  of  aloud. 

"  Cheating  at  cards  —  a  gentleman  playing  with  gentlemen. 
You  know  what  that  means." 

Tembarom  grew  hotter  and  colder.  No  wonder  she  looked 
that  way,  poor  little  thing! 


188  T.    TEMBAROM 

"But," —  he  hesitated  before  he  spoke, — "but  he  wasn't 
that  kind,  was  he  ?  Of  course  he  was  n't." 

"  No,  no.  But,  you  see," —  she  hesitated  herself  here, — 
"  everything  looked  so  much  against  him.  He  had  been  rather 
wild."  She  dropped  her  voice  even  lower  in  making  the  admis 
sion. 

Tembarom  wondered  how  much  she  meant  by  that. 

"  He  was  so  much  in  debt.  He  knew  he  was  to  be  rich  in  the 
future,  and  he  was  poor  just  in  those  reckless  young  days  when 
it  seemed  unfair.  And  he  had  played  a  great  deal  and  had  been 
very  lucky.  He  was  so  lucky  that  sometimes  his  luck  seemed 
uncanny.  Men  who  had  played  with  him  were  horrible  about  it 
afterward/' 

"  They  would  be,"  put  in  Tembarom.  "  They  'd  be  sore 
about  it,  and  bring  it  up." 

They  both  forgot  their  tea.  Miss  Alicia  forgot  everything  as 
she  poured  forth  her  story  in  the  manner  of  a  woman  who  had 
been  forced  to  keep  silent  and  was  glad  to  put  her  case  into 
words.  It  was  her  case.  To  tell  the  truth  of  this  forgotten 
wrong  was  again  to  offer  justification  of  poor  handsome  Jem 
whom  everybody  seemed  to  have  dropped  talk  of,  and  even  pre 
ferred  not  to  hear  mentioned. 

"There  were  such  piteously  cruel  things  about  it,"  she  went 
on.  "  He  had  fallen  very  much  in  love,  and  he  meant  to  marry 
and  settle  down.  Though  we  had  not  seen  each  other  for  years, 
he  actually  wrote  to  me  and  told  me  about  it.  His  letter  made 
me  cry.  He  said  I  would  understand  and  care  about  the  thing 
which  seemed  to  have  changed  everything  and  made  him  a  new 
man.  He  was  so  sorry  that  he  had  not  been  better  and  more 
careful.  He  was  going  to  try  all  over  again.  He  was  not  go 
ing  to  play  at  all  after  this  one  evening  when  he  was  obliged 
to  keep  an  engagement  he  had  made  months  before  to  give  his 
revenge  to  a  man  he  had  won  a  great  deal  of  money  from.  The 
very  night  the  awful  thing  happened  he  had  told  Lady  Joan, 
before  he  went  into  the  card-room,  that  this  was  to  be  his  last 
game." 

Tembarom  had  looked  deeply  interested  from  the  first,  but  at 
her  last  words  a  new  alertness  added  itself. 


T.    TEMBAEOM  189 

"Did  you  say  Lady  Joan?"  he  asked.  "Who  was  Lady 
Joan?" 

"  She  was  the  girl  he  was  so  much  in  love  with.  Her  name 
was  Lady  Joan  Fayre." 

"  Was  she  the  daughter  of  the  Countess  of  Mallowe  ?  " 

"  Yes.     Have  you  heard  of  her  ?  " 

He  recalled  Ann's  reflective  consideration  of  him  before  she 
had  said,  "  She  '11  come  after  you."  He  replied  now :  "  Some 
one  spoke  of  her  to  me  this  morning.  They  say  she  's  a  beauty 
and  as  proud  as  Lucifer." 

"  She  was,  and  she  is  yet,  I  believe.  Poor  Lady  Joan  —  as 
well  as  poor  Jem !  " 

"  She  did  n't  believe  it,  did  she  ?  "  he  put  in  hastily.  "  She 
did  n't  throw  him  down  ?  " 

"  No  one  knew  what  happened  between  them  afterward.  .She 
was  in  the  card-room,  looking  on,  when  the  awful  thing  took 
place." 

She  stopped,  as  though  to  go  on  was  almost  unbearable.  She 
had  been  so  overwhelmed  by  the  past  shame  of  it  that  even  after 
the  passing  of  years  the  anguish  was  a  living  thing.  Her  small 
hands  clung  hard  together  as  they  rested  on  the  edge  of  the 
table.  Tembarom  waited  in  thrilled  suspense.  She  spoke  in  a 
whisper  again: 

"  He  won  a  great  deal  of  money  —  a  great  deal.  He  had  that 
uncanny  luck  again,  and  of  course  people  in  the  other  rooms 
heard  what  was  going  on,  and  a  number  drifted  in  to  look  on. 
The  man  he  had  promised  to  give  his  revenge  to  almost  showed 
signs  of  having  to  make  an  effort  to  conceal  his  irritation  and 
disappointment.  Of  course,  as  he  was  a  gentleman,  he  was  as 
cool  as  possible;  but  just  at  the  most  exciting  moment,  the 
height  of  the  game,  Jem  made  a  quick  movement,  and  —  and 
something  fell  out  of  his  sleeve." 

"  Something,"  gasped  Tembarom,  "  fell  out  of  his  sleeve !  " 

Miss  Alicia's  eyes  overflowed  as  she  nodded  her  beribboned 
little  cap. 

"  It " —  her  voice  was  a  sob  of  woe  — "  it  was  a  marked 
card.  The  man  he  was  playing  against  snatched  it  and  held  it 
up.  And  he  laughed  out  loud." 


190  T.    TEMBAEOM 

"  Holy  cats !  "  burst  from  Tembarom ;  but  the  remarkable  ex 
clamation  was  one  of  genuine  horror,  and  he  turned  pale,  got  up 
from  his  seat,  and  took  two  or  three  strides  across  the  room, 
as  though  he  could  not  sit  still. 

"  Yes,  he  laughed  —  quite  loudly/'  repeated  Miss  Alicia,  "  as 
if  he  had  guessed  it  all  the  time.  Papa  heard  the  whole  story 
from  some  one  who  was  present." 

Tembarom  came  back  to  her  rather  breathless. 

"What  in  thunder  did  he  do  —  Jem?"  he  asked. 

She  actually  wrung  her  poor  little  hands. 

"  What  could  he  do  ?  There  was  a  dead  silence.  People 
moved  just  a  little  nearer  to  the  table  and  stood  and  stared, 
merely  waiting.  They  say  it  was  awful  to  see  his  face  —  awful. 
He  sprang  up  and  stood  still,  and  slowly  became  as  white  as  if 
he  were  dying  before  their  eyes.  Some  one  thought  Lady  Joan 
Fayre  took  a  step  toward  him,  but  no  one  was  quite  sure.  He 
never  uttered  one  word,  but  walked  out  of  the  room  and  down 
the  stairs  and  out  of  the  house." 

"  But  did  n't  he  speak  to  the  girl  ?  " 

"  He  did  n't  even  look  at  her.  He  passed  her  by  as  if  she 
were  stone." 

"What  happened  next?" 

"  He  disappeared.  No  one  knew  where  at  first,  and  then 
there  was  a  rumor  that  he  had  gone  to  the  Klondike  and  had 
been  killed  there.  And  a  year  later  —  only  a  year!  Oh,  if 
he  had  only  waited  in  England !  —  a  worthless  villain  of  a  valet 
he  had  discharged  for  stealing  met  with  an  accident,  and  be 
cause  he  thought  he  was  going  to  die,  got  horribly  frightened, 
and  confessed  to  the  clergyman  that  he  had  tucked  the  card  in 
poor  Jem's  sleeve  himself  just  to  pay  him  off.  He  said  he  did 
it  on  the  chance  that  it  would  drop  out  where  some  one  would 
see  it,  and  a  marked  card  dropping  out  of  a  man's  sleeve  any 
where  would  look  black  enough,  whether  he  was  playing  or  not. 
But  poor  Jem  was  in  his  grave,  and  no  'one  seemed  to  care, 
though  every  one  had  been  interested  enough  in  the  scandal. 
People  talked  about  that  for  weeks." 

Tembarom  pulled  at  his  collar  excitedly. 

"It  makes  me  sort  of  strangle,"  he  said.     "You've  got  to 


T.    TEMBAEOM  191 

stand  your  own  bad  luck,  but  to  hear  of  a  chap  that's  had  to 
lie  down  and  take  the  worst  that  could  come  to  him  and  know 
it  wasn't  his  —  just  know  it!  And  die  before  he's  cleared! 
That  knocks  me  out." 

Almost  every  sentence  he  uttered  had  a  mystical  sound  to 
Miss  Alicia,  but  she  knew  how  he  was  taking  it,  with  what  hot, 
young  human  sympathy  and  indignation.  She  loved  the  way 
he  took  it,  and  she  loved  the  feeling  in  his  next  words: 

"  And  the  girl  —  good  Lord !  —  the  girl  ?  " 

"  I  never  met  her,  and  I  know  very  little  of  her ;  but  she  has 
never  married." 

"  I  'm  glad  of  that,"  he  said.  "  I  'm  darned  glad  of  it.  How 
could  she  ?  "  Ann  would  n't,  he  knew.  Ann  would  have  gone 
to  her  grave  unmarried.  But  she  would  have  done  things  first 
to  clear  her  man's  name.  Somehow  she  would  have  cleared  him, 
if  she  'd  had  to  fight  tooth  and  nail  till  she  was  eighty. 

"  They  say  she  has  grown  very  bitter  and  haughty  in  her 
manner.  I  'm  afraid  Lady  Mallowe  is  a  very  worldly  woman. 
One  hears  they  don't  get  on  together,  and  that  she  is  bitterly 
disappointed  because  her  daughter  has  not  made  a  good  match. 
It  appears  that  she  might  have  made  several,  but  she  is  so  hard 
and  cynical  that  men  are  afraid  of  her.  I  wish  I  had  known 
her  a  little  —  if  she  really  loved  Jem." 

Tembarom  had  thrust  his  hands  into  his  pockets,  and  was 
standing  deep  in  thought,  looking  at  the  huge  bank  of  red  coals 
in  the  fire-grate.  Miss  Alicia  hastily  wiped  her  eyes. 

"  Do  excuse  me,"  she  said. 

"  I  '11  excuse  you  all  right,"  he  replied,  still  looking  into  the 
coals.  "  I  guess  I  should  n't  excuse  you  as  much  if  you  did  n't." 
He  let  her  cry  in  her  gentle  way  while  he  stared,  lost  in  re 
flection. 

"And  if  he  hadn't  fired  that  valet  chap,  he  would  be  here 
with  you  now  —  instead  of  me.  Instead  of  me,"  he  repeated. 

And  Miss  Alicia  did  not  know  what  to  say  in  reply.  There 
seemed  to  be  nothing  which,  with  propriety  and  natural  feeling, 
one  could  say. 

"  It  makes  me  feel  just  fine  to  know  I  'm  not  going  to  have 


192  T.    TEMBAROM 

my  dinner  all  by  myself,"  he  said  to  her  before  she  left  the 
library. 

She  had  a  way  of  blushing  about  things  he  noticed,  when  she 
was  shy  or  moved  or  did  n't  know  exactly  what  to  say.  Though 
she  must  have  been  sixty,  she  did  it  as  though  she  were  sixteen. 
And  she  did  it  when  he  said  this,  and  looked  as  though  suddenly 
she  was  in  some  sort  of  trouble. 

"  You  are  going  to  have  dinner  with  me,"  he  said,  seeing  that 
she  hesitated  — "  dinner  and  breakfast  and  lunch  and  tea  and 
supper  and  every  old  thing  that  goes.  You  can't  turn  me  down 
after  me  staking  out  that  claim." 

"  I  'm  afraid  — "  she  said.  "  You  see,  I  have  lived  such  a  se 
cluded  life.  I  scarcely  ever  left  my  rooms  except  to  take  a  walk. 
I  'm  sure  you  understand.  It  would  not  have  been  necessary 
even  if  I  could  have  afforded  it,  which  I  really  could  n't  —  I  'm 
afraid  I  have  nothing  —  quite  suitable  —  for  evening  wear." 

"  You  have  n't !  "  he  exclaimed  gleefully.  "  I  don't  know 
what  is  suitable  for  evening  wear,  but  I  haven't  got  it  either. 
Pearson  told  me  so  with  tears  in  his  eyes.  It  never  was  neces 
sary  for  me  either.  I  've  got  to  get  some  things  to  quiet  Pear 
son  down,  but  until  I  do  I  've  got  to  eat  my  dinner  in  a  tweed 
cutaway ;  and  what  I  've  caught  on  to  is  that  it 's  unsuitable 
enough  to  throw  a  man  into  jail.  That  little  black  dress  you  've 
got  on  and  that  little  cap  are  just  'way  out  of  sight,  they  're  so 
becoming.  Come  down  just  like  you  are." 

She  felt  a  little  as  Pearson  had  felt  when  confronting  his 
new  employer's  entire  cheerfulness  in  face  of  a  situation  as  ex- 
otically  hopeless  as  the  tweed  cutaway,  and  nothing  else  by  way 
of  resource.  But  there  was  something  so  nice  about  him,  some 
thing  which  was  almost  as  though  he  was  actually  a  gentleman, 
something  which  absolutely,  if  one  could  go  so  far,  stood  in  the 
place  of  his  being  a  gentleman.  It  was  impossible  to  help  liking 
him  more  and  more  at  every  queer  speech  he  made.  Still,  there 
were  of  course  things  he  did  not  realize,  and  perhaps  one  ought 
in  kindness  to  give  him  a  delicate  hint. 

"  I  'm  afraid,"  she  began  quite  apologetically.  "  I  'm  afraid 
that  the  servants,  Burrill  and  the  footmen,  you  know,  will  be  — 
will  think—" 


T.    TEMBAROM  193 

"  Say,"  he  took  her  up,  "  let 's  give  Burrill  and  the  footmen 
the  Willies  out  and  out.  If  they  can't  stand  it,  they  can  write 
home  to  their  mothers  and  tell  'em  they  've  got  to  take  'em  away. 
Burrill  and  the  footmen  needn't  worry.  They're  suitable 
enough,  and  it 's  none  of  their  funeral,  anyhow." 

He  was  n't  upset  in  the  least.  Miss  Alicia,  who,  as  a  timid 
dependent  either  upon  "  poor  dear  papa "  or  Mr.  Temple  Bar- 
holm,  had  been  secretly,  in  her  sensitive,  ladylike  little  way, 
afraid  of  superior  servants  all  her  life,  knowing  that  they  real 
ized  her  utterly  insignificant  helplessness,  and  resented  giving 
her  attention  because  she  was  not  able  to  show  her  appreciation 
of  their  services  in  the  proper  manner  —  Miss  Alicia  saw  that  it 
had  not  occurred  to  him  to  endeavor  to  propitiate  them  in  the 
least,  because  somehow  it  all  seemed  a  joke  to  him,  and  he 
didn't  care.  After  the  first  moment  of  being  startled,  she  re 
garded  him  with  a  novel  feeling,  almost  a  kind  of  admiration. 
Tentatively  she  dared  to  wonder  if  there  was  not  something  even 
rather  —  rather  aristocratic  in  his  utter  indifference. 

If  he  had  been  a  duke,  he  would  not  have  regarded  the  serv 
ants'  point  of  view;  it  wouldn't  have  mattered  what  they 
thought.  Perhaps,  she  hastily  decided,  he  was  like  this  be 
cause,  though  he  was  not  a  duke,  boot-blacking  in  New 
York  notwithstanding  he  was  a  Temple  Barholm.  There 
were  few  dukes  as  old  of  blood  as  a  Temple  Barholm.  That 
must  be  it.  She  was  relieved. 

Whatsoever  lay  at  the  root  of  his  being  what  he  was  and  as 
he  was,  he  somehow  changed  the  aspect  of  things  for  her, 
and  without  doing  anything  but  be  himself,  cleared  the  atmos 
phere  of  her  dread  of  the  surprise  and  mental  reservations  of 
the  footmen  and  Burrill  when  she  came  down  to  dinner  in  her 
high-necked,  much-cleaned,  and  much-repaired  black  silk,  and 
with  no  more  distinguishing  change  in  her  toilet  than  a  white 
lace  cap  instead  of  a  black  one,  and  with  "  poor  dear  mamma's  " 
hair  bracelet  with  the  gold  clasp  on  her  wrist,  and  a  weeping- 
willow  made  of  "  poor  dear  papa's "  hair  in  a  brooch  at  her 
collar. 

It  was  so  curious,  though  still  "nice,"  but  he  did  not  offer 
her  his  arm  when  they  were  going  into  the  dining-room,  and 


194  T.   TEMBAEOM 

he  took  hold  of  hers  with  his  hand  and  affectionately  half  led, 
half  pushed,  her  along  with  him  as  they  went.  And  he  him 
self  drew  back  her  chair  for  her  at  the  end  of  the  table  oppo 
site  his  own.  He  did  not  let  a  footman  do  it,  and  he  stood 
behind  it,  talking  in  his  cheerful  way  all  the  time,  and  he 
moved  it  to  exactly  the  right  place,  and  then  actually  bent 
down  and  looked  under  the  table. 

"  Here,"  he  said  to  the  nearest  man-servant,  "  where 's  there 
a  footstool?  Get  one,  please,"  in  that  odd,  simple,  almost 
aristocratic  way.  It  was  not  a  rude  dictatorial  way,  but  a 
casual  way,  as  though  he  knew  the  man  was  there  to  do  things, 
and  he  didn't  expect  any  time  to  be  wasted. 

And  it  was  he  himself  who  arranged  the  footstool,  making  it 
comfortable  for  her,  and  then  he  went  to  his  own  chair  at  the 
head  of  the  table  and  sat  down,  smiling  at  her  joyfully  across 
the  glass  and  silver  and  flowers. 

"  Push  that  thing  in  the  middle  on  one  side,  Burrill,"  he 
Baid.  "It's  too  high.  I  can't  see  Miss  Alicia." 

Burrill  found  it  difficult  to  believe  the  evidence  of  his  hearing. 

"  The  epergne,  sir  ?  "  he  inquired. 

"  Is  that  what  it 's  called,  an  apern  ?  That 's  a  new  one  on 
me.  Yes,  that's  what  I  mean.  Push  the  apern  over." 

"  Shall  I  remove  it  from  the  table,  sir  ? "  Burrill  steeled 
himself  to  exact  civility.  Of  what  use  to  behave  otherwise? 
There  always  remained  the  liberty  to  give  notice  if  the  worst 
came  to  the  worst,  though  what  the  worst  might  eventually 
prove  to  be  it  required  a  lurid  imagination  to  depict.  The 
epergne  was  a  beautiful  thing  of  crystal  and  gold,  a  celebrated 
work  of  art,  regarded  as  an  exquisite  possession.  It  was  al 
most  remarkable  that  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  had  not  said, 
"  Shove  it  on  one  side,"  but  Burrill  had  been  spared  the  poig 
nant  indignity  of  being  required  to  "shove." 

"Yes,  suppose  you  do.  It's  a  fine  enough  thing  when  it 
is  n't  in  the  way,  but  I  've  got  to  see  you  while  I  talk,  Miss 
Alicia,"  said  Mr.  Temple  Barholm.  The  episode  of  the  epergne 
—  Burrill's  expression,  and  the  rigidly  restrained  mouths  of 
Henry  and  James  as  the  decoration  was  removed,  leaving  a 
painfully  blank  space  of  table-cloth  until  Burrill  silently  filled 


T.    TEMBAROM  195 

it  with  flowers  in  a  low  bowl  —  these  things  temporarily  flur 
ried  Miss  Alicia  somewhat,  but  the  pleased  smile  at  the  head 
of  the  table  calmed  even  that  trying  moment. 

Then  what  a  delightful  meal  it  was,  to  be  sure!  How  en 
tertaining  and  cheerful  and  full  of  interesting  conversation! 
Miss  Alicia  had  always  admired  what  she  reverently  termed 
"  conversation."  She  had  read  of  the  houses  of  brilliant  people 
where  they  had  it  at  table,  at  dinner  and  supper  parties,  and  in 
drawing-rooms.  The  French,  especially  the  French  ladies, 
were  brilliant  conversationalists.  They  held  "  salons  "  in  which 
the  conversation  was  wonderful  —  Mme.  de  Stael  and  Mme. 
Roland,  for  instance;  and  in  England,  Lady  Mary  Wortley 
Montague,  Sydney  Smith,  and  Horace  Walpole,  and  surely  Miss 
Fanny  Burney,  and  no  doubt  L.  E.  L.,  whose  real  name  was 
Miss  Letitia  Elizabeth  Landon  —  what  conversation  they  must 
have  delighted  their  friends  with  and  how  instructive  it  must 
have  been  even  to  sit  in  the  most  obscure  corner  and  listen! 

Such  gifted  persons  seemed  to  have  been  chosen  by  Provi 
dence  to  delight  and  inspire  every  one  privileged  to  hear  them. 
Such  privileges  had  been  omitted  from  the  scheme  of  Miss 
Alicia's  existence.  She  did  not  know,  she  would  have  felt  it 
sacrilegious  to  admit  it  even  if  the  fact  had  dawned  upon  her, 
that  "  dear  papa  "  had  been  a  heartlessly  arrogant,  utterly  self 
ish,  and  tyrannical  old  blackguard  of  the  most  pronounced 
type.  He  had  been  of  an  absolute  morality  as  far  as  social  laws 
were  concerned.  He  had  written  and  delivered  a  denunciatory 
sermon  a  week,  and  had  made  unbearable  by  his  ministrations 
the  suffering  hours  and  the  last  moments  of  his  parishioners 
during  the  long  years  of  his  pastorate.  When  Miss  Alicia,  in 
reading  records  of  the  helpful  relationship  of  the  male  pro 
genitors  of  the  Brontes,  Jane  Austen,  Fanny  Burney,  and  Mrs. 
Browning,  was  frequently  reminded  of  him,  she  revealed  a  per 
ception  of  which  she  was  not  aware.  He  had  combined  the 
virile  qualities  of  all  of  them.  Consequently,  brilliancy  of  con 
versation  at  table  had  not  been  the  attractive  habit  of  the  house 
hold  ;  "  poor  dear  papa  "  had  confined  himself  to  scathing  criti 
cism  of  the  incompetence  of  females  who  could  not  teach  their 
menials  to  "  cook  a  dinner  which  was  not  a  disgrace  to  any  de- 


196  T.    TEMBAEOM 

cent  household."  When  not  virulently  aspersing  the  mutton,  he 
was  expressing  his  opinion  of  muddle-headed  weakness  which 
would  permit  household  bills  to  mount  in  a  manner  which  could 
only  bring  ruin  and  disaster  upon  a  minister  of  the  gospel  who 
throughout  a  protracted  career  of  usefulness  had  sapped  his  in 
tellectual  manhood  in  the  useless  effort  to  support  in  silly  idle 
ness  a  family  of  brainless  and  maddening  fools.  Miss  Alicia 
had  heard  her  character,  her  unsuccessful  physical  appearance, 
her  mind,  and  her  pitiful  efforts  at  table-talk,  described  in  de 
tail  with  a  choice  of  adjective  and  adverb  which  had  broken  into 
terrified  fragments  every  atom  of  courage  and  will  with  which 
she  had  been  sparsely  dowered. 

So,  not  having  herself  been  gifted  with  conversational  powers 
to  begin  with,  and  never  having  enjoyed  the  exhibition  of  such 
powers  in  others,  her  ideals  had  been  high.  She  was  not  sure 
that  Mr.  Temple  Barholm's  fluent  and  cheerful  talk  could  be 
with  exactness  termed  "  conversation/7  It  was  perhaps  not  suf 
ficiently  lofty  and  intellectual,  and  did  not  confine  itself  rigor 
ously  to  one  exalted  subject.  But  how  it  did  raise  one's  spirits 
and  open  up  curious  vistas!  And  how  good  tempered  and 
humorous  it  was,  even  though  sometimes  the  humor  was  a  little 
bewildering!  During  the  whole  dinner  there  never  occurred 
even  one  of  those  dreadful  pauses  in  which  dead  silence  fell, 
and  one  tried,  like  a  frightened  hen  flying  from  side  to  side  of 
a  coop,  to  think  of  something  to  say  which  would  not  sound 
silly,  but  perhaps  might  divert  attention  from  dangerous  topics. 
She  had  often  thought  it  would  be  so  interesting  to  hear  a 
Spaniard  or  a  native  Hindu  talk  about  himself  and  his  own 
country  in  English.  Tembarom  talked  about  New  York  and 
its  people  and  atmosphere,  and  he  did  not  know  how  foreign  it 
all  was.  He  described  the  streets  —  Fifth  Avenue  and  Broad 
way  and  Sixth  Avenue  —  and  the  street-cars  and  the  elevated 
railroad,  and  the  way  "fellows"  had  to  "hustle"  "to  put  it 
over."  He  spoke  of  a  boarding-house  kept  by  a  certain  Mrs. 
Bowse,  and  a  presidential  campaign,  and  the  election  of  a 
mayor,  and  a  quick-lunch  counter,  and  when  President  Garfield 
had  been  assassinated,  and  a  department  store,  and  the  electric 
lights,  and  the  way  he  had  of  making  a  sort  of  picture  of  every- 


T.   TEMBAROM  197 

thing  was  really  instructive  and,  well,  fascinating.  She  felt  as 
though  she  had  been  taken  about  the  city  in  one  of  the  vehicles 
the  conductor  of  which  described  things  through  a  megaphone. 

Not  that  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  suggested  a  megaphone,  what 
soever  that  might  be,  but  he  merely  made  you  feel  as  if  you  had 
seen  things.  Never  had  she  been  so  entertained  and  enlight 
ened.  If  she  had  been  a  beautiful  girl,  he  could  not  have 
seemed  more  as  though  in  amusing  her  he  was  also  really  pleas 
ing  himself.  He  was  so  very  funny  sometimes  that  she  could 
not  help  laughing  in  a  way  which  was  almost  unladylike,  be 
cause  she  could  not  stop,  and  was  obliged  to  put  her  handker 
chief  up  to  her  face  and  wipe  away  actual  tears  of  mirth. 

Fancy  laughing  until  you  cried,  and  the  servants  looking  on ! 

Once  Burrill  himself  was  obliged  to  turn  hastily  away, 
and  twice  she  heard  him  severely  reprove  an  overpowered  young 
footman  in  a  rapid  undertone. 

Tembarom  at  least  felt  that  the  unlifting  heaviness  of  at 
mosphere  which  had  surrounded  him  while  enjoying  the  com 
panionship  of  Mr.  Palford  was  a  thing  of  the  past. 

The  thrilled  interest,  the  surprise  and  delight  of  Miss  Alicia 
would  have  stimulated  a  man  in  a  comatose  condition,  it  seemed 
to  him.  The  little  thing  just  loved  every  bit  of  it  —  she  just  "  eat 
it  up."  She  asked  question  after  question,  sometimes  questions 
which  would  have  made  him  shout  with  laughter  if  he  had  not 
been  afraid  of  hurting  her  feelings.  She  knew  as  little  of  New 
York  as  he  knew  of  Temple  Barholm,  and  was,  it  made  him 
grin  to  see,  allured  by  it  as  by  some  illicit  fascination.  She 
did  not  know  what  to  make  of  it,  and  sometimes  she  was 
obliged  hastily  to  conceal  a  fear  that  it  was  a  sort  of  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah ;  but  she  wanted  to  hear  more  about  it,  and  still  more. 

And  she  brightened  up  until  she  actually  did  not  look  fright 
ened,  and  ate  her  dinner  with  an  excellent  appetite. 

"  I  really  never  enjoyed  a  dinner  so  much  in  my  life,"  she 
said  when  they  went  into  the  drawing-room  to  have  their  cof 
fee.  "It  was  the  conversation  which  made  it  so  delightful. 
Conversation  is  such  a  stimulating  thing ! " 

She  had  almost  decided  that  it  was  "  conversation,"  or  at 
least  a  wonderful  substitute. 


198  T.    TEMBAROM 

When  she  said  good  night  to  him  and  went  beaming  to  bed, 
looking  forward  immensely  to  breakfast  next  morning,  he 
watched  her  go  up  the  staircase,  feeling  wonderfully  normal  and 
happy. 

"  Some  of  these  nights,  when  she  'a  used  to  me,"  he  said  as  he 
stuffed  tobacco  into  his  last  pipe  in  the  library  — "  some  of  these 
nights  I  'm  darned  if  I  sha'n't  catch  hold  of  the  sweet,  little  old 
thing  and  hug  her  in  spite  of  myself.  I  sha'n't  be  able  to  help 
it."  He  lit  his  pipe,  and  puffed  it  even  excitedly.  "  Lord ! " 
he  said,  "  there  's  some  blame'  fool  going  about  the  world  right 
now  that  might  have  married  her.  And  he  '11  never  know  what 
a  break  he  made  when  he  did  n't." 


CHAPTER  XVI 


FUGITIVE  fine  day  which  had  strayed 
into  the  month  from  the  approaching 
spring  appeared  the  next  morning,  and 
Miss  Alicia  was  uplifted  by  the  enraptur 
ing  suggestion  that  she  should  join  her 
new  relative  in  taking  a  walk,  in  fact  that 
it  should  be  she  who  took  him  to  walk  and 
showed  him  some  of  his  possessions.  This, 
it  had  revealed  itself  to  him,  she  could  do 
in  a  special  way  of  her  own,  because  during 
her  life  at  Temple  Barholm  she  had  felt  it  her  duty  to  "try  to 
do  a  little  good"  among  the  villagers.  She  and  her  long-dead 
mother  and  sister  had  of  course  been  working  adjuncts  of  the 
vicarage,  and  had  numerous  somewhat  trying  tasks  to  perform  in 
the  way  of  improving  upon  "  dear  papa's  "  harrying  them  into  at 
tending  church,  chivying  the  mothers  into  sending  their  children 
to  Sunday-school,  and  being  unsparing  in  severity  of  any  conduct 
which  might  be  construed  into  implying  lack  of  appreciation  of 
the  vicar  or  respect  for  his  eloquence. 

It  had  been  necessary  for  them  as  members  of  the  vicar's 
family  —  always,  of  course,  without  adding  a  sixpence  to  the 
household  bills  —  to  supply  bowls  of  nourishing  broth  and  ar 
rowroot  to  invalids  and  to  bestow  the  aid  and  encouragement 
which  result  in  a  man  of  God's  being  regarded  with  affection 
and  gratitude  by  his  parishioners.  Many  a  man's  career  in 
the  church,  "  dear  papa "  had  frequently  observed,  had  been 
ruined  by  lack  of  intelligence  and  effort  on  the  part  of  the  fe 
male  members  of  his  family. 

"  No  man  could  achieve  proper  results,"  he  had  said,  "  if  he 
was  hampered  by  the  selfish  influence  and  foolishness  of  his 
womenkind.  Success  in  the  church  depends  in  one  sense  very 
much  upon  the  conduct  of  a  man's  female  relatives." 

199 


200  T.   TEMBAROM 

After  the  deaths  of  her  mother  and  sister,  Miss  Alicia  had 
toiled  on  patiently,  fading  day  by  day  from  a  slim,  plain,  sweet- 
faced  girl  to  a  slim,  even  plainer  and  sweeter-faced  middle- 
aged  and  at  last  elderly  woman.  She  had  by  that  time  read  aloud 
by  bedsides  a  great  many  chapters  in  the  Bible,  had  given  a  good 
many  tracts,  and  bestowed  as  much  arrowroot,  barley-water,  and 
beef-tea  as  she  could  possibly  encompass  without  domestic  dis 
aster.  She  had  given  a  large  amount  of  conscientious,  if  not  too 
intelligent,  advice,  and  had  never  failed  to  preside  over  her  Sun 
day-school  class  or  at  mothers'  meetings.  But  her  timid  unim- 
pressiveness  had  not  aroused  enthusiasm  or  awakened  compre 
hension.  "  Miss  Alicia,"  the  cottage  women  said,  "  she  's  well 
meaning  but  she  's  not  one  with  a  head."  "  She  reminds  me," 
one  of  them  had  summed  her  up,  "  of  a  hen  that  lays  a'  egg  every 
day,  but  it 's  too  small  for  a  meal,  and  'u'd  never  hatch  into 
anythin'." 

During  her  stay  at  Temple  Barholm  she  had  tentatively  tried 
to  do  a  little  "  parish  work,"  but  she  had  had  nothing  to  give, 
and  she  was  always  afraid  that  if  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  found 
her  out,  he  would  be  angry,  because  he  would  think  she  was  pre 
suming.  She  was  aware  that  the  villagers  knew  that  she  was  an 
object  of  charity  herself,  and  a  person  who  was  "  a  lady  "  and 
yet  an  object  of  charity  was,  so  to  speak,  poaching  upon  their 
own  legitimate  preserves.  The  rector  and  his  wife  were  rather 
grand  people,  and  condescended  to  her  greatly  on  the  few  occa 
sions  of  their  accidental  meetings.  .She  was  neither  smart  nor 
influential  enough  to  be  considered  as  an  asset. 

It  was  she  who  "conversed"  during  their  walk,  and  while 
she  trotted  by  Tembarom's  side  looking  more  early- Victorian 
than  ever  in  a  neat,  fringed  mantle  and  a  small  black  bonnet 
of  a  fashion  long  decently  interred  by  a  changing  world,  Tem- 
barom  had  never  seen  anything  resembling  it  in  New  York ;  but 
he  liked  it  and  her  increasingly  at  every  moment. 

It  was  he  who  made  her  converse.  He  led  her  on  by  asking 
her  questions  and  being  greatly  interested  in  every  response  she 
made.  In  fact,  though  he  was  quite  unaware  of  the  situation, 
she  was  creating  for  him  such  an  atmosphere  as  he  might  have 
found  in  a  book,  if  he  had  had  the  habit  of  books.  Everything 


T.    TEMBAEOM  201 

she  told  him  was  new  and  quaint  and  very  often  rather  touch 
ing.  She  related  anecdotes  about  herself  and  her  poor  little 
past  without  knowing  she  was  doing  it.  Before  they  had  talked 
an  hour  he  had  an  astonishing  clear  idea  of  "  poor  dear  papa '* 
and  "  dearest  Emily  "  and  "  poor  darling  mama  "  and  existence 
at  Rowcroft  Vicarage.  He  "caught  on  to"  the  fact  that 
though  she  was  very  much  given  to  the  word  <f  dear/' —  people 
were  "  dear/'  and  so  were  things  and  places, —  she  never  even 
"by  chance  slipped  into  saying  "  dear  Rowcroft,"  which  she  would 
certainly  have  done  if  she  had  ever  spent  a  happy  moment 
in  it. 

As  she  talked  to  him  he  realized  that  her  simple  accus- 
tomedness  to  English  village  life  and  all  its  accompaniments 
of  county  surroundings  would  teach  him  anything  and  every 
thing  he  might  want  to  know.  Her  obscurity  had  been  sur 
rounded  by  stately  magnificence,  with  which  she  had  become 
familiar  without  touching  the  merest  outskirts  of  its  privileges. 
She  knew  names  and  customs  and  families  and  things  to  be  cul 
tivated  or  avoided,  and  though  she  would  be  a  little  startled  and 
much  mystified  by  his  total  ignorance  of  all  she  had  breathed  in 
since  her  birth,  he  felt  sure  that  she  would  not  regard  him  either 
with  private  contempt  or  with  a  lessened  liking  because  he  was 
a  vandal  pure  and  simple. 

And  she  had  such  a  nice,  little,  old  polite  way  of  saying 
things.  When,  in  passing  a  group  of  children,  he  failed  to  un 
derstand  that  their  hasty  bobbing  up  and  down  meant  that  they 
were  doing  obeisance  to  him  as  lord  of  the  manor,  she  spoke 
with  the  prettiest  apologetic  courtesy. 

"  I  'm  sure  you  won't  mind  touching  your  hat  when  they 
make  their  little  curtsies,  or  when  a  villager  touches  his  fore 
head,"  she  said. 

"  Good  Lord !  no,"  he  said,  starting.  "  Ought  I  ?  I  did  n't 
know  they  were  doing  it  at  me."  And  he  turned  round  and 
made  a  handsome  bow  and  grinned  almost  affectionately  at  the 
small,  amazed  party,  first  puzzling,  and  then  delighting,  them, 
because  he  looked  so  extraordinarily  friendly.  A  gentleman 
who  laughed  at  you  like  that  ought  to  be  equal  to  a  miscellane 
ous  distribution  of  pennies  in  the  iuture,  if  not  on  the  spot, 


202  T.    TEMBAROM 

They  themselves  grinned  and  chuckled  and  nudged  one  another, 
with  stares  and  giggles. 

"  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  in  a  great  many  places  the  villagers 
are  not  nearly  so  respectful  as  they  used  to  be,"  Miss  Alicia  ex 
plained.  "  In  Roweroft  the  children  were  very  remiss  about 
curtseying.  It's  quite  sad.  But  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  was 
very  strict  indeed  in  the  matter  of  demanding  proper  respectful 
ness.  He  has  turned  men  off  their  farms  for  incivility.  The 
villagers  of  Temple  Barholm  have  much  better  manners  than 
some  even  a  few  miles  away/' 

"  Must  I  tip  my  hat  to  all  of  them  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  If  you  please.  It  really  seems  kinder.  You  —  you  need  n't 
quite  lift  it,  as  you  did  to  the  children  just  now.  If  you  just 
touch  the  brim  lightly  with  your  hand  in  a  sort  of  military 
salute  —  that  is  what  they  are  accustomed  to." 

After  they  had  passed  through  the  village  street  she  paused 
at  the  end  of  a  short  lane  and  looked  up  at  him  doubtfully. 

"  Would  you  —  I  wonder  if  you  would  like  to  go  into  a  cot 
tage,"  she  said. 

"Go  into  a  cottage?"  he  asked.  "What  cottage?  What 
for?" 

He  had  not  the  remotest  idea  of  any  reason  why  he  should 
go  into  a  cottage  inhabited  by  people  who  were  entire  strangers 
to  him,  and  Miss  Alicia  felt  a  trifle  awkward  at  having  to  ex 
plain  anything  so  wholly  natural. 

"You  see,  they  are  your  cottages,  and  the  people  are  your 
tenants,  and — " 

"But  perhaps  they  mightn't  like  it.  It  might  make  'em 
mad,"  he  argued.  "  If  their  water-pipes  had  busted,  and  they  'd 
asked  me  to  come  and  look  at-  them  or  anything ;  but  they  don't 
know  me  yet.  They  might  think  I  was  Mr.  Buttinski." 

"  I  don't  quite  — "  she  began.  "  Buttinski  is  a  foreign  name ; 
it  sounds  Russian  or  Polish.  I  'm  afraid  I  don't  quite  under 
stand  why  they  should  mistake  you  for  him." 

Then  he  laughed  —  a  boyish  shout  of  laughter  which  brought 
a  cottager  to  the  nearest  window  to  peep  over  the  pots  of 
fuchsias  and  geraniums  blooming  profusely  against  the  diamond 
panes. 


T.    TEMBAEOM  203 

"  Say/'  he  apologized,  "  don't  be  mad  because  I  laughed. 
I  'm  laughing  at  myself  as  much  as  at  anything.  It 's  a  way 
of  saying  that  they  might  think  I  was  '  butting  in '  too  much  — 
pushing  in  where  I  was  n't  asked.  See  ?  I  said  they  might 
think  I  was  Mr.  Butt-in-ski!  It's  just  a  bit  of  fool  slang. 
You  're  not  mad,  are  you  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no !  "  she  said.  "  Dear  me !  no.  It  is  very  funny,  of 
course.  I  'm  afraid  I  'm  extremely  ignorant  about  —  about  for 
eign  humor."  It  seemed  more  delicate  to  say  "  foreign "  than 
merely  "  American."  But  her  gentle  little  countenance  for  a 
few  seconds  wore  a  baffled  expression,  and  she  said  softly  to  her 
self,  "  Mr.  Buttinski,  Butt-in  —  to  intrude.  It  sounds  quite 
Polish;  I  think  even  more  Polish  than  Eussian." 

He  was  afraid  he  would  yell  with  glee,  but  he  did  not. 
Herculean  effort  enabled  him  to  restrain  his  feelings,  and  pre 
sent  to  her  only  an  ordinary-sized  smile. 

"  I  should  n't  know  one  from  the  other,"  he  said ;  "  but  if 
you  say  it  sounds  more  Polish,  I  bet  it  does." 

"Would  you  like  to  go  into  a  cottage?"  she  inquired.  "I 
think  it  might  be  as  well.  They  will  like  the  attention." 

"Will  they?  Of  course  I'll  go  if  you  think  that.  What 
shall  I  say  ?  "  he  asked  somewhat  anxiously. 

"  If  you  think  the  cottage  looks  clean,  you  might  tell  them 
so,  and  ask  a  few  questions  about  things.  And  you  must  be 
sure  to  inquire  about  Susan  Hibblethwaite's  legs." 

"  What  ?  "  ejaculated  Tembarom. 

"  Susan  Hibblethwaite's  legs,"  she  replied  in  mild  explana 
tion.  "  Susan  is  Mr.  Hibblethwaite's  unmarried  sister,  and 
she  has  very  bad  legs.  It  is  a  thing  one  notices  continually 
among  village  people,  more  especially  the  women,  that  they  com 
plain  of  what  they  call  '  bad  legs.'  I  never  quite  know  what 
they  mean,  whether  it  is  rheumatism  or  something  different,  but 
the  trouble  is  always  spoken  of  as  'bad  legs/  And  they  like 
you  to  inquire  about  them,  so  that  they  can  tell  you  their 
symptoms." 

"Why  don't  they  get  them  cured?" 

"  I  don't  know,  I  'm  sure.  They  take  a  good  deal  of  medicine 
when  they  can  afford  it.  I  think  they  like  to  take  it.  They  're 


204  T.    TEMBAROM 

very  pleased  when  the  doctor  gives  them  'a  bottle  oj  summat,' 
as  they  call  it.  Oh,  I  mustn't  forget  to  tell  you  that  most  of 
them  speak  rather  broad  Lancashire." 

"  Shall  I  understand  them  ? "  Tembarom  asked,  anxious 
again.  "Is  it  a  sort  of  Dago  talk?" 

"  It  is  the  English  the  working-classes  speak  in  Lancashire. 
'  Summat '  means  '  something/  ( Whoam '  means  '  home.'  But 
I  should  think  you  would  be  very  clever  at  understanding 
things." 

"  I  'm  scared  stiff,"  said  Tembarom,  not  in  the  least  un- 
courageously ;  "but  I  want  to  go  into  a  cottage  and  hear  some 
of  it.  Which  one  shall  we  go  into  ?  " 

There  were  several  whitewashed  cottages  in  the  lane,  each  in 
its  own  bit  of  garden  and  behind  its  own  hawthorn  hedge,  now 
bare  and  wholly  unsuggestive  of  white  blossoms  and  almond 
scent  to  the  uninitiated.  Miss  Alicia  hesitated  a  moment. 

"We  will  go  into  this  one,  where  the  Hibblethwaites  live," 
she  decided.  "  They  are  quite  clean,  civil  people.  They  have 
a  naughty,  queer,  little  crippled  boy,  but  I  suppose  they  can't 
keep  him  in  order  because  he  is  an  invalid.  He  's  rather  rude, 
I  'm  sorry  to  say,  but  he  's  rather  sharp  and  clever,  too.  He 
seems  to  lie  on  his  sofa  and  collect  all  the  gossip  of  the  vil- 
lage." 

They  went  together  up  the  bricked  path,  and  Miss  Alicia 
knocked  at  the  low  door  with  her  knuckles.  A  stout,  apple- 
faced  woman  opened  it,  looking  a  shade  nervous. 

"  Good  morning,  Mrs.  Hibblethwaite,"  said  Miss  Alicia  in  a 
kind  but  remote  manner.  "  The  new  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  has 
been  kind  enough  to  come  to  see  you.  It  's  very  good  of  him  to 
come  so  soon,  is  n't  it  ?  " 

"  It  is  that,"  Mrs.  Hibblethwaite  answered  respectfully,  looking 
him  over.  "  Wilt  tha  coom  in,  sir  ?  " 

Tembarom  accepted  the  invitation,  feeling  extremely  awk 
ward  because  Miss  Alicia's  initiatory  comment  upon  his  good 
ness  in  showing  himself  had  "  rattled  "  him.  It  had  made  him 
feel  that  he  must  appear  condescending,  and  he  had  never  con 
descended  to  any  one  in  the  whole  course  of  his  existence.  He 
had,  indeed,  not  even  been  condescended  to.  He  had  met  with 


T.    TEMBAROM  205 

slanging  and  bullying,  indifference  and  brutality  of  manner, 
but  he  had  not  met  with  condescension. 

"  I  hope  you  're  well,  Mrs.  Hibblethwaite,"  he  answered. 
"You  look  it." 

"  I  deceive  ma  looks  a  good  bit,  sir,"  she  answered.  "  Mony 
a  day  ma  legs  is  nigh  as  bad  as  Susan's." 

"  Tha  'rt  jealous  o'  Susan's  legs/'  barked  out  a  sharp  voice 
from  a  corner  by  the  fire. 

The  room  had  a  flagged  floor,  clean  with  recent  scrubbing 
with  sandstone;  the  whitewashed  walls  were  decorated  with  pic 
tures  cut  from  illustrated  papers;  there  was  a  big  fireplace,  and 
by  it  was  a  hard-looking  sofa  covered  with  blue-and-white 
checked  cotton  stuff.  A  boy  of  about  ten  was  lying  on  it, 
propped  up  with  a  pillow.  He  had  a  big  head  and  a  keen,  fer 
ret-eyed  face,  and  just  now  was  looking  round  the  end  of  his 
sofa  at  the  visitors. 

"  Howd  tha  tongue,  Tummas !  "  said  his  mother. 

"  I  wunnot  howd  it,"  Tummas  answered.  "  Ma  tongue  '& 
th'  on'y  thing  about  me  as  works  right,  an'  I  'm  noan  goin'  to 
stop  it." 

"  He 's  a  young  nowt,"  his  mother  explained ;  "  but  he  's  a 
cripple,  an'  we  conna  do  owt  wi'  him." 

"  Do  not  be  rude,  Thomas,"  said  Miss  Alicia,  with  dignity. 

"  Dunnot  be  rude  thysen,"  replied  Tummas.  "  I  'm  noan  o' 
thy  lad." 

Tembarom  walked  over  to  the  sofa. 

"Say,"  he  began  with  jocular  intent,  "you've  got  (a  grouch 
on,  ain't  you  ?  " 

Tummas  turned  on  him  eyes  which  bored.  An  analytical  ob 
server  or  a  painter  might  have  seen  that  he  had  a  burning  curi- 
ousness  of  look,  a  sort  of  investigatory  fever  of  expression. 

"  I  dunnot  know  what  tha  means,"  he  said.  "  Happen  tha  'rt 
talkin*  'Merican?" 

"  That  's  just  what  it  is,"  admitted  Tembarom.  "  What  are 
you  talking  ?  " 

"  Lancashire,"  said  Tummas.     "  Theer  's  some  sense  i'  that." 

Tembarom  sat  down  near  him.  The  boy  turned  over  against 
his  pillow  and  put  his  chin  in  the  hollow  of  his  palm  and  stared 


206  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  I  've  wanted  to  see  thee,"  he  remarked.  "  I  've  made 
mother  an'  Aunt  Susan  an'  feyther  tell  me  every  bit  they've 
beared  about  thee  in  the  village.  Theer  was  a  lot  of  it.  Tha 
coom  fro'  'Meriker  ?  " 

"  Yes."  Tembarom  began  vaguely  to  feel  the  demand  in  the 
burning  curiosity. 

"  Gi'  me  that  theer  book,"  the  boy  said,  pointing  to  a  small 
table  heaped  with  a  miscellaneous  jumble  of  things  and  standing 
not  far  from  him.  "  It 's  a'  atlas,"  he  added  as  Tembarom  gave 
it  to  him.  "  Yo'  con  find  places  in  it."  He  turned  the  leaves 
until  he  found  a  map  of  the  world.  "  Theer  's  'Meriker,"  he 
said,  pointing  to  the  United  States.  "  That  theer  's  north  and 
that  theer 's  south.  All  th'  real  'Merikens  comes  from  the 
North,  wheer  New  York  is." 

"  I  come  from  New  York,"  said  Tembarom. 

"  Tha  wert  born  i'  th'  workhouse,  tha  run  about  th'  streets 
i'  rags,  tha  pretty  nigh  clemmed  to  death,  tha  blacked  boots,  tha 
sold  newspapers,  ,tha  feyther  was  a  common  workin'-mon  — 
and  now  tha  's  coom  into  Temple  Barholm  an'  sixty  thousand  a 
year." 

"  The  last  part 's  true  all  right,"  Tembarom  owned,  "  but 
there's  some  mistakes  in  the  first  part.  I  wasn't  born  in  the 
workhouse,  and  though  I  've  been  hungry  enough,  I  never 
starved  to  death  —  if  that 's  what  '  clemmed '  means." 

Tummas  looked  at  once  disappointed  and  somewhat  incredu 
lous. 

"  That 's  th'  road  they  tell  it  i'  th'  village,"  he  argued. 

"  Well,  let  then  tell  it  that  way  if  they  like  it  best.  That 's 
not  going  to  worry  me,"  Tembarom  replied  uncombatively. 

Tummas's  eyes  bored  deeper  into  him. 

"  Does  na  tha  care  ?  "  he  demanded. 

"What  should  I  care  for?  Let  every  fellow  enjoy  himself 
his  own  way." 

"  Tha  'rt  not  a  bit  like  one  o'  th'  gentry,"  said  Tummas. 
"  Tha  'rt  quite  a  common  chap.  Tha  'rt  as  common  as  me,  for 
aw  tha  foine  clothes." 

"  People  are  common  enough,  anyhow,"  said  Tembarom. 
"  There  's  nothing  much  commoner,  is  there  ?  There  's  millions 


T.    TEMBAROM  207 

of  'em  everywhere  —  billions  of  'em.  None  of  us  need  put  on 
airs." 

"  Tha  'rt  as  common  as  me/'  said  Tummas,  reflectively. 
"  An'  yet  tha  owns  Temple  Barholm  an'  aw  that  brass.  I  conna 
mak'  out  how  th'  loike  happens." 

"  Neither  can  I ;  but  it  does   all   samee." 

"  It  does  na  happen  i'  'Meriker,"  exulted  Tummas.  "  Every 
body  's  equal  theer." 

"  Eats !  "  ejaculated  Tembarom.  "  What  about  multimillion 
aires  ?  " 

He  forgot  that  the  age  of  Tummas  was  ten.  It  was  im 
possible  not  to  forget  it.  He  was,  in  fact,  ten  hundred,  if  those 
of  his  generation  had  been  aware  of  the  truth.  But  there  he 
sat,  having  spent  only  a  decade  of  his  most  recent  incarnation 
in  a  whitewashed  cottage,  deprived  of  the  use  of  his  legs. 

Miss  Alicia,  seeing  that  Tembarom  was  interested  in  the  boy, 
entered  into  domestic  conversation  with  Mrs.  Hibblethwaite  at 
the  other  side  of  the  room.  Mrs.  Hibblethwaite  was  soon  ex 
plaining  the  uncertainty  of  Susan's  temper  on  wash-days,  when 
it  was  necessary  to  depend  on  her  legs. 

"  Can't  you  walk  at  all  ?  "  Tembarom  asked.  Tummas  shook 
his  head.  "  How  long  have  you  been  lame  ?  " 

"  Ever  since  I  wur  born.  It 's  summat  like  rickets.  I  've 
been  lyin'  here  aw  my  days.  I  look  on  at  foak  an'  think  'em 
over.  I  've  got  to  do  summat.  That 's  why  I  loike  th'  atlas. 
Little  Ann  Hutchinson  gave  it  to  me  onct  when  she  come  to  see 
her  grandmother." 

Tembarom  sat  upright. 

"  Do  you  know  her  ?  "  he  exclaimed. 

"  I  know  her  best  o'  onybody  in  th'  world.  An'  I  loike  her 
best." 

"  So  do  I,"  rashly  admitted  Tembarom. 

"  Tha  does  ?  "  Tummas  asked  suspiciously.  "  Does  she  loike 
thee?" 

"  She  says  she  does."  He  tried  to  say  it  with  proper  mod 
esty. 

"Well,  if  she  says  she  does,  she  does.  An'  if  she  does,  then 
yo  an'  me '11  be  friends,"  He  stopped  a  moment,  and  seemed 


208  T.    TEMBAROM 

to  be  taking  Tembarom  in  with  thoroughness.  "  I  could  get  a 
lot  out  o'  thee,"  he  said  after  the  inspection. 

"  A  lot  of  what  ?  "  Tembarom  felt  as  though  he  would  really 
like  to  hear. 

*'  A  lot  o'  things  I  want  to  know  about.  I  wish  I  'd  lived 
th'  life  tha  's  lived,  clemmin'  or  no  clemmin'.  Tha  's  seen 
things  goin'  on  every  day  o'  thy  loife." 

"  Well,  yes,  there  's  been  plenty  going  on,  plenty,"  Tembarom 
admitted. 

"  I  've  been  lying  here  for  ten  year'/'  said  Tummas,  sav 
agely.  "  An'  I  've  had  nowt  i'  th'  world  to  do  an'  nowt  to 
think  on  but  what  I  could  mak'  foak  tell  me  about  th'  village. 
But  nowt  happens  but  this  chap  gettin'  drunk  an'  that  chap 
deein'  or  losin'  his  place,  or  wenches  gettin'  married  or  havin' 
childer.  I  know  everything  that  happens,  but  it's  nowt  but  a 
lot  o'  women  clackin'.  If  I  'd  not  been  a  cripple,  I  'd  ha'  been 
at  work  for  mony  a  year  by  now,  'arnin'  money  to  save  by  an' 
go  to  'Meriker." 

"  You  seem  to  be  sort  of  stuck  on  America.     How  's  that  ?  " 

"What  dost  mean?" 

"  I  mean  you  seem  to  like  it." 

"  I  dunnot  loike  it  nor  yet  not  loike  it,  but  I  've  heard  a  bit 
more  about  it  than  I  have  about  th'  other  places  on  th'  map. 
Foak  goes  there  to  seek  their  fortune,  an'  it  seems  loike  there 's  a 
good  bit  doin'." 

"  Do  you  like  to  read  newspapers  ? "  said  Tembarom,  in 
spired  to  his  query  by  a  recollection  of  the  vision  of  things 
"doin"'  in  the  Sunday  Earth. 

"  Wheer  'd  I  get  papers  from  ? "  the  boy  asked  testily. 
"  Foak  like  us  has  n't  got  th'  brass  for  'em." 

"  I  '11  bring  you  some  New  York  papers,"  promised  Tem 
barom,  grinning  a  little  in  anticipation.  "  And  we  '11  talk 
about  the  news  that's  in  them.  The  Sunday  Earth  is  full  of 
pictures.  I  used  to  work  on  that  paper  myself." 

"  Tha  did  ?  "  Tummas  cried  excitedly.  "  Did  tha  help  to  print 
it,  or  was  it  th'  one  tha  sold  i'  th'  streets  ?  " 

"  I  wrote  some  of  the  stuff  in  it." 

"Wrote  some  of  th'  stuff  in  it?     Wrote  it  thaself?     How 


T.   TEMBAROM  209 

could  tha,  a  common  chap  like  thee?"  he  asked,  more  excited 
still,  his  ferret  eyes  snapping. 

"  I  don't  know  how  I  did  it,"  Tembarom  answered,  with  in 
creased  cheer  and  interest  in  the  situation.  "  It  was  n't  high 
brow  sort  of  work." 

Tummas  leaned  forward  in  his  incredulous  eagerness. 

"Does  tha  mean  that  they  paid  thee  for  writin'  it  —  paid 
thee?" 

"  I  guess  they  would  n't  have  done  it  if  they  'd  been  Lanca 
shire,"  Tembarom  answered.  "  But  they  had  n't  much  more 
sense  than  I  had.  They  paid  me  twenty-five  dollars  a  week  — 
that's  five  pounds." 

"  I  dunnot  believe  thee,"  said  Tummas,  and  leaned  back 
on  his  pillow  short  of  breath. 

"  I  did  n't  believe  it  myself  till  I  'd  paid  my  board  two  weeks 
and  bought  a  suit  of  clothes  with  it,"  was  Tembarom's  answer, 
and  he  chuckled  as  he  made  it. 

But  Tummas  did  believe  it.  This,  after  he  had  recovered 
from  the  shock,  became  evident.  The  curiosity  in  his  face  in 
tensified  itself ;  his  eagerness  was  even  vaguely  tinged  with  some 
thing  remotely  resembling  respect.  It  was  not,  however,  respect 
for  the  money  which  had  been  earned,  but  for  the  store  of 
things  "  doin'  "  which  must  have  been  required.  It  was  impos 
sible  that  this  chap  knew  things  undreamed  of. 

"  Has  tha  ever  been  to  th'  Klondike  ?  "  he  asked  af  te7*  a  long 
pause. 

"  No.     I  've  never  been  out  of  New  York." 

Tummas   seemed  fretted  and   depressed. 

"  Eh,  I  'm  sorry  for  that.  I  wished  tha  'd  been  to  th'  Klon 
dike.  I  want  to  be  towd  about  it,"  he  sighed.  He  pulled  the 
atlas  toward  him  and  found  a  place  in  it. 

"  That  theer  's  Dawson,"  he  announced.  Tembarom  saw 
that  the  region  of  the  Klondike  had  been  much  studied.  It 
was  even  rather  faded  with  the  frequent  passage  of  searching 
fingers,  as  though  it  had  been  pored  over  with  special  curiosity. 

"  There 's  gowd-moines  theer,"  revealed  Tummas.  "  An' 
theer 's  welly  nowt  else  but  snow  an'  ice.  A  young  chap  as  set 
out  fro'  here  to  get  theer  froze  to  death  on  th'  way." 


210  T.   TEMBAftOM 

"  How  did  you  get  to  hear  about  it  ?  " 

"  Ann  she  browt  me  a  paper  onct."  He  dug  under  his  pillow, 
and  brought  out  a  piece  of  newspaper,  worn  and  frayed  and 
cut  with  age  and  usage.  "  This  heer  's  what  's  left  of  it." 
Tembarom  saw  that  it  was  a  fragment  from  an  old  American 
sheet  and  that  a  column  was  headed  "  The  Eush  for  the  Klon 
dike." 

"Why  didna  tha  go  theer?"  demanded  Tummas.  He 
looked  up  from  his  fragment  and  asked  his  question  with  a  sud 
den  reflectiveness,  as  though  a  new  and  interesting  aspect  of 
things  had  presented  itself  to  him. 

"  I  had  too  much  to  do  in  New  York,"  said  Tembarom. 
"  There 's  always  something  doing  in  New  York,  you  know." 

Tummas  silently  regarded  him  a  moment  or  so. 

"  It 's  a  pity  tha  did  n't  go,"  he  said.  "  Happen  tha  'd  never 
ha'  coom  back." 

Tembarom  laughed  the  outright  laugh. 

"  Thank  you,"  he  answered. 

Tummas  was  still  thinking  the  matter  over  and  was  not 
disturbed. 

"  I  was  na  thinkin'  o'  thee,"  he  said  in  an  impersonal  tone. 
"  I  was  thinkin'  o'  t'  other  chap.  If  tha  'd  gon  i'stead  o' 
him,  he'd  ha'  been  here  i'stead  o'  thee.  Eh,  but  it's  funny." 
And  he  drew  a  deep  breath  like  a  sigh  having  its  birth  in  pro 
fundity  of  baffled  thought. 

Both  he  and  his  evident  point  of  view  were  "  funny  "  in  the 
Lancashire  sense,  which  does  not  imply  humor,  but  strange 
ness  and  the  unexplainable.  Singular  as  the  phrasing  was, 
Tembarom  knew  what  he  meant,  and  that  he  was  thinking  of 
the  oddity  of  chance.  Tummas  had  obviously  heard  of  "  poor 
Jem"  and  had  felt  an  interest  in  him. 

"  You  're  talking  about  Jem  Temple  Barholm  I  guess,"  he 
said.  Perhaps  the  interest  he  himself  had  felt  in  the  tragic 
story  gave  his  voice  a  tone  somewhat  responsive  to  Tummas's 
own  mood,  for  Tummas,  after  one  more  boring  glance,  let  him 
self  go.  His  interest  in  this  special  subject  was,  it  revealed  it 
self,  a  sort  of  obsession.  The  history  of  Jem  Temple  Barholm 
had  been  the  one  drama  of  his  short  life. 


T.    TEMBAEOM  211 

"  Aye,  I  was  thinkin'  o'  him,"  he  said.  "  I  should  na  ha* 
cared  for  th'  Klondike  so  much  but  for  him." 

"  But  he  went  away  from  England  when  you  were  a  baby/' 

"  Th'  last  toime  he  coom  to  Temple  Barholm  wur  when  I 
wur  just  born.  Foak  said  he  coom  to  ax  owd  Temple  Barholm 
if  he  'd  help  him  to  pay  his  debts,  an'  th'  owd  chap  awmost 
kicked  him  out  o'  doors.  Mother  had  just  had  me,  an'  she 
was  weak  an'  poorly  an'  sittin'  at  th'  door  wi'  me  in  her  arms, 
an'  he  passed  by  an'  saw  her.  He  stopped  an'  axed  her  how 
she  was  doin'.  An'  when  he  was  goin'  away,  he  gave  her  a  gold 
sovereign,  an'  he  says,  '  Put  it  in  th'  savin's-bank  for  him,  an' 
keep  it  theer  till  he  's  a  big  lad  an'  wants  it.'  It 's  been  in  th' 
savin's-bank  ever  sin'.  I  've  got  a  whole  pound  o'  ma  own  out 
at  interest.  There's  not  many  lads  ha'  got  that." 

"  He  must  have  been  a  good-natured  fellow,"  commented 
Tembarom.  "  It  was  darned  bad  luck  him  going  to  the  Klon 
dike." 

"  It  was  good  luck  for  thee,"  said  Tummas,  with  resent 
ment. 

"  Was  it  ?  "  was  Tembarom's  unbiased  reply.  "  Well,  I  guess 
it  was,  one  way  or  the  other.  I  'm  not  kicking,  anyhow." 

Tummas  naturally  did  not  know  half  he  meant.  He  went  on 
talking  about  Jem  Temple  Barholm,  and  as  he  talked  his  cheeks 
flushed  and  his  eyes  lighted. 

"  I  would  na  spend  that  sovereign  if  I  was  starvin'.  I  'm  go 
ing  to  leave  it  to  Ann  Hutchinson  in  ma  will  when  I  dee.  I  've 
axed  questions  about  him  reet  and  left  ever  sin'  I  can  remember, 
but  theer 's  nobody  knows  much.  Mother  says  he  was  fine  an' 
handsome,  an'  gentry  through  an'  through.  If  he  'd  coom  into 
th'  property,  he  'd  ha'  coom  to  see  me  again  I  '11  lay  a  shillin', 
because  I  'm  a  cripple  an'  I  canna  spend  his  sovereign.  If 
he  'd  coom  back  from  th'  Klondike,  happen  he  'd  ha'  towd 
me  about  it."  He  pulled  the  atlas  toward  him,  and  laid  his 
thin  finger  on  the  rubbed  spot.  "  He  mun  ha'  been  killed  some- 
wheer  about  here,"  he  sighed.  "  Somewheer  here.  Eh,  it 's 
funny." 

Tembarom  watched  him.  There  was  something  that  rather 
gave  you  the  "  Willies  "  in  the  way  this  little  cripple  seemed 


212  T.    TEMBAROM 

to  have  taken  to  the  dead  man  and  worried  along  all  these  years 
thinking  him  over  and  asking  questions  and  studying  up  the 
Klondike  because  he  was  killed  there.  It  was  because  he'd 
made  a  kind  of  story  of  it.  He  'd  enjoyed  it  in  the  way  people 
enjoy  stories  in  a  newspaper.  You  always  had  to  give  'em  a 
kind  of  story ;  you  had  to  make  a  story  even  if  you  were  telling 
about  a  milk-wagon  running  away.  In  newspaper  offices  you 
heard  that  was  the  secret  of  making  good  with  what  you  wrote. 
Dish  it  up  as  if  it  was  a  sort  of  story. 

He  not  infrequently  arrived  at  astute  enough  conclusions  con 
cerning  things.  He  had  arrived  at  one  now.  Shut  out  even 
from  the  tame  drama  of  village  life,  Tummas,  born  with  an  ab 
normal  desire  for  action  and  a  feverish  curiosity,  had  hungered 
and  thirsted  for  the  story  in  any  form  whatsoever.  He  caught 
at  fragments  of  happenings,  and  colored  and  dissected  them  for 
the  satisfying  of  unfed  cravings.  The  vanished  man  had  been 
the  one  touch  of  pictorial  form  and  color  in  his  ten  years  of 
existence.  Young  and  handsome  and  of  the  gentry,  unfavored 
by  the  owner  of  the  wealth  which  some  day  would  be  his  own 
possession,  stopping  "  gentry- way  "  at  a  cottage  door  to  speak 
good-naturedly  to  a  pale  young  mother,  handing  over  the  mag 
nificence  of  a  whole  sovereign  to  be  saved  for  a  new-born  child, 
going  away  to  vaguely  understood  disgrace,  leaving  his  own 
country  to  hide  himself  in  distant  lands,  meeting  death  amid 
snow  and  ice  and  surrounded  by  gold-mines,  leaving  his  empty 
place  to  be  filled  by  a  boot-black  newsboy  —  true  there  was 
enough  to  lie  and  think  over  and  to  try  to  follow  with  the  help 
of  maps  and  excited  questions. 

"  I  wish  I  could  ha'  seen  him,"  said  Tummas.  "  I  'd  awmost 
gi'  my  sovereign  to  get  a  look  at  that  picture  in  th'  gallery  at 
Temple  Barholm." 

"  What  picture  ?  "  Tembarom  asked.  "  Is  there  a  picture  of 
him  there?" 

"  There  is  na  one  o'  him,  but  there 's  one  o'  a  lad  as  deed  two 
hundred  year'  ago  as  they  say  wur  th'  spit  an'  image  on  him 
when  he  wur  a  lad  hissen.  One  o'  th'  owd  servants  towd  mother 
it  wur  theer." 

This  was  a  natural  stimulus  to  interest  and  curiosity. 


T.    TEMBAROM  213 

"  Which  one  is  it  ?  Jinks !  I  'd  like  to  see  it  myself.  Do 
you  know  which  one  it  is  ?  There  's  hundreds  of  them/5 

"  No,  I  dunnot  know,"  was  Tummas's  dispirited  answer,  "  an' 
neither  does  mother.  Th'  woman  as  knew  left  when  owd 
Temple  Barholm  deed." 

"  Tummas,"  broke  in  Mrs.  Hibblethwaite  from  the  other  end 
of  the  room,  to  which  she  had  returned  after  taking  Miss  Alicia 
out  to  complain  about  the  copper  in  the  "  wash-'us' — "  "  Tum 
mas,  tha  'st  been  talkin'  like  a  magpie.  Tha  'rt  a  lot  too  bold 
an'  ready  wi'  tha  tongue.  Th'  gentry 's  noan  comin'  to  see  thee 
if  tha  clacks  th'  heads  off  theer  showthers." 

"  I  'm  afraid  he  always  does  talk  more  than  is  good  for  him," 
said  Miss  Alicia.  "  He  looks  quite  feverish." 

"  He  has  been  talking  to  me  about  Jem  Temple  Barholm,"  ex 
plained  Tembarom.  "  We  've  had  a  regular  chin  together.  He 
thinks  a  heap  of  poor  Jem." 

Miss  Alicia  looked  startled,  and  Mrs.  Hibblethwaite  was 
plainly  flustered  tremendously.  She  quite  lost  her  temper. 

"  Eh,"  she  exclaimed,  "  tha  wants  tha  young  yed  knocked  off, 
Tummas  Hibblethwaite.  He 's  fair  daft  about  th'  young  gentle 
man  as  —  as  was  killed.  He  axes  questions  mony  a  day  till  I  'd 
give  him  th'  stick  if  he  wasna  a  cripple.  He  moithers  me  to 
death." 

"  I  '11  bring  you  some  of  those  New  York  papers  to  look  at," 
Tembarom  said  to  the  boy  as  he  went  away. 

He  walked  back  through  the  village  to  Temple  Barholm,  hold 
ing  Miss  Alicia's  elbow  in  light,  affectionate  guidance  and  sup 
port,  a  little  to  her  embarrassment  and  also  a  little  to  her  de 
light.  Until  he  had  taken  her  into  the  dining-room  the  night 
before  she  had  never  seen  such  a  thing  done.  There  was 
no  over-familiarity  in  the  action.  It  merely  seemed  somehow 
to  suggest  liking  and  a  wish  to  take  care  of  her. 

"  That  little  fellow  in  the  village,"  he  said  after  a  silence  in 
which  it  occurred  to  her  that  he  seemed  thoughtful,  "  what  a 
little  freak  he  is !  He 's  got  an  idea  that  there  's  a  picture  in 
the  gallery  that 's  said  to  look  like  Jem  Temple  Barholm  when 
he  was  a  boy.  Have  you  ever  heard  anything  about  it?  He 
says  a  servant  told  his  mother  it  was  there." 


214  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  Yes,  there  is  one,"  Miss  Alicia  answered.  "  I  sometimes  go 
and  look  at  it.  But  it  makes  me  feel  very  sad.  It  is  the  hand 
some  boy  who  was  a  page  in  the  court  of  Charles  II.  He  died 
in  his  teens.  His  name  was  Miles  Hugo  Charles  James.  Jem 
could  see  the  likeness  himself.  Sometimes  for  a  little  joke  I 
used  to  call  him  Miles  Hugo." 

"I  believe  I  remember  him,"  said  Tembarom.  "I  believe  I 
asked  Palford  his  name.  I  must  go  and  have  a  look  at  him 
again.  He  had  n't  much  better  luck  than  the  fellow  that  looked 
like  him,  dying  as  young  as  that," 


CHAPTEE  XVII 

OEM,  color,  drama,  and  divers  other  advantages 
are  necessary  to  the  creation  of  an  object  of 
interest.     Presenting  to  the  world  none  of  these 
assets,  Miss  Alicia  had  slipped  through  life  a 
scarcely   remarked   unit.     No   little   ghost   of 
prettiness  had  attracted  the  wandering  eye,  no 
suggestion  of  agreeable  or  disagreeable  power 
of  self-assertion  had  arrested  attention.    There 
had  been  no  hour  in  her  life  when  she  had  ex 
pected    to    count    as    being    of    the    slightest 
consequence.     When  she   had  knocked  at  the 
door  of  the  study  at  Eowcroft  Vicarage,  and  "  dear  papa  "  had 
exclaimed  irritably :     "  Who  is  that  ?     Who  is  that  ?  "  she  had 
always  replied,  "  It  is  only  Alicia." 

This  being  the  case,  her  gradual  awakening  to  the  singularity 
of  her  new  situation  was  mentally  a  process  full  of  doubts  and 
sometimes  of  alarmed  bewilderments.  If  in  her  girlhood  a 
curate,  even  a  curate  with  prominent  eyes  and  a  receding  chin, 
had  proposed  to  her  that  she  should  face  with  him  a  future  en 
riched  by  the  prospect  of  being  called  upon  to  bring  up  a  proba 
ble  family  of  twelve  on  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a  year, 
with  both  parish  and  rectory  barking  and  snapping  at  her  worn- 
down  heels,  she  would  have  been  sure  to  assert  tenderly  that  she 
was  afraid  she  was  "  not  worthy."  This  was  the  natural  habit 
of  her  mind,  and  in  the  weeks  which  followed  the  foggy  after 
noon  when  Tembarom  "  staked  out  his  claim  "  she  dwelt  often 
upon  her  unworthiness  of  the  benefits  bestowed  upon  her. 

First  the  world  below-stairs,  then  the  village,  and  then  the 
county  itself  awoke  to  the  fact  that  the  new  Temple  Temple 
Barholm  had  "taken  her  up."  The  first  pendency  of  the  world 
below-stairs  was  to  resent  the  unwarranted  uplifting  of  a  person 
whom  there  had  been  a  certain  luxury  in  regarding  with  disdain 

215 


216  T.    TEMBAROM 

and  treating  with  scarcely  veiled  lack  of  consideration.  To  be 
able  to  do  this  with  a  person  who,  after  all  was  said  and  done, 
was  not  one  of  the  servant  class,  but  a  sort  of  lady  of  birth,  was 
not  unstimulating.  And  below-stairs  the  sense  of  personal 
rancor  against  "  a  'anger-on "  is  strong.  The  meals  served  in 
Miss  Alicia's  remote  sitting-room  had  been  served  at  leisure,  her 
tea  had  rarely  been  hot,  and  her  modestly  tinkled  bell  irregularly 
answered.  Often  her  far  from  liberally  supplied  fire  had  gone 
out  on  chilly  days,  and  she  had  been  afraid  to  insist  on  its  being 
relighted.  Her  sole  defense  against  inattention  would  have  been 
to  complain  to  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,  and  when  on  one  occa 
sion  a  too  obvious  neglect  had  obliged  her  to  gather  her  quaking 
being  together  in  mere  self-respect  and  say,  "  If  this  continues  to 
occur,  William,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  speak  to  Mr.  Temple  Bar- 
holm/'  William  had  so  looked  at  her  and  so  ill  hid  a  secret  smile 
that  it  had  been  almost  tantamount  to  his  saying,  "  I  'd  jolly 
well  like  to  see  you." 

And  now!  Sitting  at  the  end  of  the  table  opposite  him,  if 
you  please!  Walking  here  and  walking  there  with  him!  Sit 
ting  in  the  library  or  wherever  he  was,  with  him  talking  and 
laughing  and  making  as  much  of  her  as  though  she  were  an 
aunt  with  a  fortune  to  leave,  and  with  her  making  as  free  in 
talk  as  though  at  liberty  to  say  anything  that  came  into  her 
head!  Well,  the  beggar  that  had , found  himself  on  horseback 
was  setting  another  one  galloping  alongside  of  him.  In  the 
midst  of  this  natural  resentment  it  was  "  a  bit  upsetting,"  as 
Burrill  said,  to  find  it  dawning  upon  one  that  absolute  exactness 
of  ceremony  was  as  much  to  be  required^ for  "  her  "  as  for  "  him." 
Miss  Alicia  had  long  felt  secretly  sure  that  she  was  spoken  of 
as  "her"  in  the  servants'  hall.  That  businesslike  sharpness 
which  Palford  had  observed  in  his  client  aided  Tembarom  always 
to  see  things  without  illusions.  He  knew  that  there  was  no  par 
ticular  reason  why  his  army  of  servants  should  regard  him  for 
the  present  as  much  more  than  an  intruder;  but  he  also  knew 
that  if  men  and  women  had  employment  which  was  not  made 
hard  for  them,  and  were  well  paid  for  doing,  they  were  not  anx 
ious  to  lose  it,  and  the  man  who  paid  their  wages  might  give 
orders  with  ,some  certainty  of  finding  them  obeyed.  He  was 


T.    TEMBAEOM  217 

"  sharp  "  in  more  ways  than  one.  He  observed  shades  he  might 
have  been  expected  to  overlook.  He  observed  a  certain  shade  in 
the  demeanor  of  the  domestics  when  attending  Miss  Alicia,  and 
it  was  a  shade  which  marked  a  difference  between  service  done 
for  her  and  service  done  for  himself.  This  was  only  at  the  out 
set,  of  course,  when  the  secret  resentment  was  felt;  but  he  ob 
served  it,  mere  shade  though  it  was. 

He  walked  out  into  the  hall  after  Burrill  one  morning.  Not 
having  yet  adjusted  himself  to  the  rule  that  when  one  wished 
to  speak  to  a  man  one  rang  a  bell  and  called  him  back,  fifty 
times  if  necessary,  he  walked  after  Burrill  and  stopped  him. 

"  This  is  a  pretty  good  place  for  servants,  ain't  it  ?  "  he  said. 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  Good  pay,  good  food,  not  too  much  to  do  ?  " 

"  Certainly,  sir/'  Burrill  replied,  somewhat  disturbed  by  a 
casualness  which  yet  suggested  a  method  of  getting  at  some 
thing  or  other. 

"  You  and  the  rest  of  them  don't  want  to  change,  do  you  ?  " 

"  No,  sir.  There  is  no  complaint  whatever  as  far  as  I  have 
heard/' 

"  That  'a  all  right."  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  had  put  his  hands 
into  his  pockets,  and  stood  looking  non-committal  in  a  steady 
sort  of  way.  "  There  's  something  I  want  the  lot  of  you  to  get 
on  to  — •  right  away.  Miss  Temple  Barholm  is  going  to  stay 
here.  She 's  got  to  have  everything  just  as  she  wants  it.  She  's 
got  to  be  pleased.  She  's  the  lady  of  the  house.  See  ?  " 

"  I  hope,  sir,"  Burrill  said  with  professional  dignity,  "  that 
Miss  Temple  Barholm  has  not  had  reason  to  express  any  dis 
satisfaction." 

"  I  'm  the  one  that  would  express  it  —  quick,"  said  Tembarom. 
"  She  would  n't  have  time  to  get  in  first.  I  just  wanted  to  make 
sure  I  should  n't  have  to  do  it.  The  other  fellows  are  under  you. 
You've  got  a ,  head  on  your  shoulders,  I  guess.  It's  up  to  you 
to  put  'em  on  to  it.  That's  all." 

"  Thank  you,  sir,"  said  Burrill. 

His  master  went  back  into  the  library  smiling  genially,  and 
Burrill  stood  still  a  moment  or  so  gazing  at  the  door  he  closed 
behind  him. 


218  T.    TEMBAROM 

Be  sure  the  village,  and  finally  circles  not  made  up  of  cot 
tagers,  heard  of  this,  howsoever  mysteriously.  Miss  Alicia  was 
not  aware  that  the  incident  had  occurred.  She  could  not  help 
observing,  however,  that  the  manners  of  the  servants  of  the 
household  curiously  improved ;  also,  when  she  passed  through  the 
village,  that  foreheads  were  touched  without  omission  and  the 
curtseys  of  playing  children  were  prompt.  When  she  dropped 
into  a  cottage,  housewives  polished  off  the  seats  of  chairs  vigor 
ously  before  offering  them,  and  symptoms  and  needs  were  ex 
plained  with  a  respectful  fluency  which  at  times  almost  sug 
gested  that  she  might  be  relied  on  to  use  influence. 

"  I  'm  afraid  I  have  done  the  village  people  injustice,"  she  said 
leniently  to  Tembarom.  "  I  used  to  think  them  so  disrespectful 
and  unappreciative.  I  dare  say  it  was  because  I  was  so  troubled 
myself.  I  'm  afraid  one's  own  troubles  do  sometimes  make  one 
unfair." 

"  Well,  yours  are  over,"  said  Tembarom.  "  And  so  are  mine 
as  long  as  you  stay  by  me." 

Never  had  Miss  Alicia  been  to  London.  She  had  remained, 
as  was  demanded  of  her  by  her  duty  to  dear  papa,  at  Eowcroft, 
which  was  in  Somersetshire.  She  had  only  dreamed  of  Lon 
don,  and  had  had  fifty-five  years  of  dreaming.  She  had  read  of 
great  functions,  and  seen  pictures  of  some  of  them  in  the  illus 
trated  papers.  She  had  loyally  endeavored  to  follow  at  a  dis 
tance  the  doings  of  her  Majesty, —  she  always  spoke  of  Queen 
Victoria  reverentially  as  "her  Majesty," — she  rejoiced  when  a 
prince  or  a  princess  was  born  or  christened  or  married,  and  be 
lieved  that  a  "  drawing-room  "  was  the  most  awe-inspiring,  bril 
liant,  and  important  function  in  the  civilized  world,  scarcely 
second  to  Parliament.  London  —  no  one  but  herself  or  an 
elderly  gentlewoman  of  her  type  could  have  told  any  one  the  na 
ture  of  her  thoughts  of  London. 

Let,  therefore,  those  of  vivid  imagination  make  an  effort  to 
depict  to  themselves  the  effect  produced  upon  her  mind  by  Tem- 
barom's  casually  suggesting  at  breakfast  one  morning  that  he 
thought  it  might  be  rather  a  good  "  stunt "  for  them  to  run  up 
to  London.  By  mere  good  fortune  she  escaped  dropping  the 
egg  she  had  just  taken  from  the  egg-stand. 


T.    TEMBAEOM  210 

"  London !  "  she  said.     «  Oh !  >' 

"  Pearson  thinks  it  would  be  a  first-rate  idea/'  he  explained. 
"  I  guess  he  thinks  that  if  he  can  get  me  into  the  swell  clothing 
stores  he  can  fix  me  up  as  I  ought  to  be  fixed,  if  I  'm  not  going 
to  disgrace  him.  I  should  hate  to  disgrace  Pearson.  Then  he 
can  see  his  girl,  too,  and  I  want  him  to  see  his  girl." 

"  Is  —  Pearson  —  engaged  ?  "  she  asked ;  but  the  thought 
which  was  repeating  itself  aloud  to  her  was  "  London !  London !  " 

"  He  calls  it '  keeping  company,'  or  *  walking  out,'  "  Tembarom 
answered.  "  She 's  a  nice  girl,  and  he 's  dead  stuck  on  her. 
Will  you  go  with  me,  Miss  Alicia  ?  " 

"  Dear  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,"  she  fluttered,  "  to  visit  London 
would  be  a  privilege  I  never  dreamed  it  would  be  my  great  for 
tune  to  enjoy  —  never." 

"  Good  business !  "  he  ejaculated  delightedly.  "  That 's  luck 
for  me.  It  gave  me  the  blues  —  what  I  saw  of  it.  But  if  you 
are  with  me,  I  '11  bet  it  '11  be  as  different  as  afternoon  tea  was 
after  I  got  hold  of  you.  When  shall  we  start  ?  To-morrow  ?  " 

Her  sixteen-year-old  blush  repeated  itself. 

"  I  feel  so  sorry.  It  seems  almost  undignified  to  mention  it, 
but  —  I  fear  I  should  not  look  smart  enough  for  London.  My 
wardrobe  is  so  very  limited.  I  must  n't,"  she  added  with  a  sweet 
effort  at  humor,  "  do  the  new  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  discredit  by 
looking  unfashionable." 

He  was  more  delighted  than  before. 

"  Say,"  he  broke  out,  "  I  '11  tell  you  what  we  '11  do :  we  '11  go 
together  and  buy  everything  'suitable'  in  sight.  The  pair  of 
us  '11  come  back  here  as  suitable  as  Burrill  and  Pearson.  We  '11 
paint  the  town  red." 

He  actually  meant  it.  He  was  like  a  boy  with  a  new  game. 
His  sense  of  the  dreariness  of  London  had  disappeared.  He 
knew  what  it  would  be  like  with  Miss  Alicia  as  a  companion. 
He  had  really  seen  nothing  of  the  place  himself,  and  he  would 
find  out  every  darned  thing  worth  looking  at,  and  take  her  to 
see  it  —  theaters,  shops,  every  show  in  town.  When  they  left 
the  breakfast-table  it  was  agreed  upon  that  they  would  make  the 
journey  the  following  day. 

He  did  not  openly  refer  to  the  fact  that  among  the  plans  for 


220  T.    TEMBAROM 

their  round  of  festivities  he  had  laid  out  for  himself  the  attend 
ing  to  one  or  two  practical  points.  He  was  going  to  see  Pal- 
ford,  and  he  had  made  an  appointment  with  a  celebrated  nerve 
specialist.  He  did  not  discuss  this  for  several  reasons.  One  of 
them  was  that  his  summing  up  of  Miss, Alicia  was  that  she  had 
had  trouble  enough  to  think  over  all  her  little  life,  and  the  thing 
for  a  fellow  to  do  for  her,  if  he  liked  her,  was  to  give  her  a  good 
time  and  make  her  feel  as  if  she  was  at  a  picnic  right  straight 
along  —  not  let  her  even  hear  of  a  darned  thing  that  might 
worry  her.  He  had  said  comparatively  little  to  her  about 
Strangeways.  His  first  mention  of  his  condition  had  obviously 
made  her  somewhat  nervous,  though  she  had  been  full  of  kindly 
interest.  She  was  in  private  not  sorry  that  it  was  felt  better 
that  she  should  not  disturb  the  patient  by  a  visit  to  his  room. 
The  abnormality  of  his  condition  seemed  just  slightly  alarming 
to  her. 

"  But,  oh,  how  good,  how  charitable,  you  are !  "  she  had  mur 
mured. 

"  Good/'  he  answered,  the  devout  admiration  of  her  tone  rather 
puzzling  him.  "  It  ain't  that.  I  just  want  to  see  the  thing 
through.  I  dropped  into  it  by  accident,  and  then  I  dropped 
into  this  by  accident,  and  that  made  it  as  easy  as  falling  off  a 
log.  I  believe  he  '&  going  to  get  well  sometime.  I  guess  I  kind 
of  like  him  because  he  holds  on  to  me  so  and  believes  I  'm  just 
It.  Maybe  it 's  because  I  'm  stuck  on  myself." 

His  visit  to  Strangeways  was  longer  than  usual  that  after 
noon.  He  explained  the  situation  to  him  so  that  he  under 
stood  it  sufficiently  not  to  seem  alarmed  by  it.  This  was  one  of 
the  advances  Tembarom  had  noticed  recently,  that  he  was  less 
easily  terrified,  and  seemed  occasionally  to  see  facts  in  their 
proper  relation  to  one  another.  Sometimes  the  experiments 
tried ,  on  him  were  successful,  sometimes  they  were  not,  but  he 
never  resented  them.  , 

"  You  are  trying  to  help  me  to  remember,"  he  said  once.  "  I 
think  you  will  sometime." 

"  Sure  I  will,"  said  Tembarom.     "  You  're  better  every  day." 

Pearson  was  to  remain  in  charge  of  him  until  toward  the 
end  of  the  London  visit.  Then  he  was  to  run  up  for  a  couple  of 


T.    TEMBAROM  221 

days,  leaving  in  his  place  a  young  footman  to  whom  the  invalid 
had  become  accustomed. 

The  visit  to  London  was  to  Miss  Alicia  a  period  of  enraptured 
delirium.  The  beautiful  hotel  in  which  she  was  established,  the 
afternoons  at  the  Tower,  the  National  Gallery,  the  British  Mu 
seum,  the  evenings  at  the  play,  during  which  one  saw  the  most 
brilliant  and  distinguished  actors,  the  mornings  in  the  shops,  at 
tended  as  though  one  were  a  person  of  fortune,  what  could  be 
said  of  them?  And  the  sacred  day  on  which  she  saw  her 
Majesty  drive  slowly  by,  glittering  helmets,  splendid  uniforms, 
waving  plumes,  and  clanking  swords  accompanying  and  guard 
ing  her,  and  gentlemen  standing  still  with  their  hats  off,  and 
everybody  looking  after  her  with  that  natural  touch  of  awe 
which  royalty  properly  inspires!  Miss  Alicia's  heart  beat 
rapidly  in  her  breast,  and  she  involuntarily  made  a  curtsey  as 
the  great  lady  in  mourning  drove  by.  She  lost  no  shade  of 
any  flavor  of  ecstatic  pleasure  in  anything,  and  was  to  Tem- 
barom,  who  knew  nothing  about  shades  and  flavors,  indeed  a 
touching  and  endearing  thing. 

He  had  never  got  so  much  out  of  anything.  If  Ann  had  just 
been  there,  well,  that  would  have  been  the  limit.  Ann  was  on 
her  way  to  America  now,  and  she  would  n't  write  to  him  or  let 
him  write  to  her.  He  had  to  make  a  fair  trial  of  it.  He  could 
find  out  only  in  that  way,  she  said.  It  was  not  to  be  denied 
that  the  youth  and  longing  in  him  gave  him  some  half-hours 
to  face  which  made  him  shut  himself  up  in  his  room  and  stare 
hard  at  the  wall,  folding  his  arms  tightly  as  he  tilted  his  chair. 

There  arrived  a  day  when  one  of  the  most  exalted  shops  in 
Bond  Street  was  invaded  by  an  American  young  man  of  a  bear 
ing  the  peculiarities  of  which  were  ,  subtly  combined  with  a  re 
motely  suggested  air  of  knowing  that  if  he  could  find  what  he 
wanted,  there  was  no  doubt  as  to  his  power  to  get  it.  What 
he  wanted  was  not  usual,  and  was  explained  with  a  frankness 
which  might  have  seemed  unsophisticated,  but,  singularly,  did 
not.  He  wanted  to  have  a  private  talk  with  some  feminine 
power  in  charge,  and  she  must  be  some  one  who  knew  exactly 
what  ladies  ought  to  have. 

Being  shown  into  a  room,  such  a  feminine  power  was  brought 


222  T.    TEMBAROM 

to  him  and  placed  at  his  service.  She  was  a  middle-aged  per 
son,  wearing  beautifully  fitted  garments  and  having  an  observant 
eye  and  a  dignified  suavity  of  manner.  She  looked  the  young 
American  over  with  a  swift  inclusion  of  all  possibilities.  He 
was  by  this  time  wearing  extremely  well-fitting  garments  him 
self,  but  she  was  at  once  aware  that  his  tailored  perfection  was 
a  new  thing  to  him. 

He  went  to  his  point  without  apologetic  explanation. 

"  You  know  all  the  things  any  kind  of  a  lady  ought  to  have," 
he  said  — "  all  the  things  that  would  make  any  one  feel  com 
fortable  and  as  if  they'd  got  plenty?  Useful  things  as  well 
as  ornamental  ones?" 

"  Yes,  sir,"  she  replied,  with  rising  interest.  "  I  have  been 
in  the  establishment  thirty  years." 

"  Good  business,"  Tembarom  replied.  Already  he  felt  re 
lieved.  "  1 7ve  got  a  relation,  a  little  old  lady,  and  I  want  her 
to  fix  herself  out  just  as  she  ought  to  be  fixed.  Now,  what  I  'm 
afraid  of  is  that  she  won't  get  everything  she  ought  to  unless 
I  manage  it  for  her  somehow  beforehand.  She's  got  into  a 
habit  of  —  well,  economizing.  Now  the  time 's  past  for  that, 
and  I  want  her  to  get  everything  a  woman  like  you  would  know 
she  really  wants,  so  that  she  could  look  her  best,  living  in  a  big 
country  house,  with  a  relation  that  thinks  a  lot  of  her." 

He  paused  a  second  or  so,  and  then  went  further,  fixing  a 
clear  and  astonishingly  shrewd  eye  upon  the  head  of  the  depart 
ment  listening  to  him. 

"  I  found  out  this  was  a  high-class  place,"  he  explained.  "  I 
made  sure  of  that  before  I  came  in.  In  a  place  that  was  second 
or  third  class  there  might  be  people  who  'd  think  they  'd  caught 
a  '  sucker '  that  would  take  anything  that  was  unloaded  on  to 
him,  because  he  did  n't  know.  The  things  are  for  Miss  Temple 
Barholm,  and  she  does  know.  I  shall  ask  her  to  come  here  her 
self  to-morrow  morning,  and  I  want  you  to  take  care  of  her, 
and  show  her  the  best  you  've  got  that 's  suitable."  He  seemed 
to  like  the  word ;  he  repeated  it  — "  Suitable,"  and  quickly  re 
strained  a  sudden,  unexplainable,  wide  smile. 

The  attending  lady's  name  was  Mrs.  Mellish.  Thirty  years' 
experience  had  taught  her  many  lessons.  She  was  a  hard 


T.    TEMBAROM  223 

woman  and  a  sharp  one,  but  beneath  her  sharp  hardness  lay  a 
suppressed  sense  of  the  perfect  in  taste.  To  have  a  customer 
with  unchecked  resources  put  into  her  hands  to  do  her  best  by 
was  an  inspiring  incident.  A  quiver  of  enlightenment  had 
crossed  her  countenance  when  she  had  heard  the  name  of 
Temple  Barholm.  She  had  a  newspaper  knowledge  of  the  odd 
Temple  Barholm  story.  This  was  the  next  of  kin  who  had 
blacked  boots  in  New  York,  and  the  obvious  probability  that  he 
was  a  fool,  if  it  had  taken  the  form  of  a  hope,  had  been  promptly 
nipped  in  the  bud.  The  type  from  which  he  was  furthest  re 
moved  was  that  of  the  fortune-intoxicated  young  man  who  could 
be  obsequiously  flattered  into  buying  anything  which  cost  money 
enough. 

"  Not  a  thing  's  to  be  unloaded  on  her  that  she  does  n't  like," 
he  added,  "  and  she 's  not  a  girl  that  goes  to  pink  teas.  She  's 
a  —  a  —  lady  —  and  not  young —  and  used  to  quiet  ways." 

The  evidently  New  York  word  "  unload  "  revealed  him  to  his 
hearer  as  by  a  flash,  though  she  had  never  heard  it  before. 

"  We  have  exactly  the  things  which  will  be  suitable,  sir,"  she 
said.  "  I  think  I  quite  understand."  Tembarom  smiled  again, 
and,  thanking  her,  went  away  still  smiling,  because  he  knew  Miss 
Alicia  was  safe. 

There  were  of  course  difficulties  in  the  way  of  persuading 
Miss  Alicia  that  her  duty  lay  in  the  direction  of  spending  morn 
ings  in  the  most  sumptuous  of  Bond  Street  shops,  ordering  for 
herself  an  entire  wardrobe  on  a  basis  of  unlimited  resources. 
Tembarom  was  called  upon  to  employ  the  most  adroitly  subtle 
reasoning,  entirely  founded  on  his  "  claim  "  and  her  affectionate 
willingness  to  give  him  pleasure. 

He  really  made  love  to  her  in  the  way  a  joyful  young  fellow 
can  make  love  to  his  mother  or  his  nicest  aunt.  He  made  her 
feel  that  she  counted  for  so  much  in  his  scheme  of  enjoyment 
that  to  do  as  he  asked  would  be  to  add  a  glow  to  it. 

"  And  they  won't  spoil  you,"  he  said.  "  The  Mellish  woman 
that 's  the  boss  has  promised  that.  I  would  n't  have  you  spoiled 
for  a  farm,"  he  added  heartily. 

And  he  spoke  the  truth.  If  he  had  been  told  that  he  was 
cherishing  her  type  as  though  it  were  a  priceless  bit  of  old 


224:  T.    TEMBAROM 

Saxe,  he  would  have  stared  blankly  and  made  a  jocular  remark. 
But  it  was  exactly  this  which  he  actually  clung  to  and  adored. 
He  even  had  a  second  private  interview  with  Mrs.  Hellish,  and 
asked  her  to  "  keep  her  as  much  like  she  was  "  as  was  possible. 

Stimulated  by  the  suppressed  touch  of  artistic  fervor,  Mrs. 
Hellish  guessed  at  something  even  before  her  client  arrived ;  but 
the  moment  she  entered  the  showroom  all  was  revealed  to  her  at 
once.  The  very  hint  of  flush  and  tremor  in  Miss  Alicia's  man 
ner  was  an  assistance.  Surrounded  by  a  small  and  extremely 
select  court  composed  of  Mrs.  Mellish  and  two  low-voiced,  deft- 
handed  assistants,  it  was  with  a  fine  little  effort  that  Miss  Alicia 
restrained  herself  from  exterior  suggestion  of  her  feeling  that 
there  was  something  almost  impious  in  thinking  of  possessing 
the  exquisite  stuffs  and  shades  displayed  to  her  in  flowing  beauty 
on  every  side.  Such  linens  and  batistes  and  laces,  such  delicate, 
faint  grays  and  lavenders  and  soft-falling  blacks !  If  she  had 
been  capable  of  approaching  the  thought,  such  luxury  might  even 
have  hinted  at  guilty  splendor. 

Mrs.  Mellish  became  possessed  of  an  "  idea."  To  create  the 
costume  of  an  exquisite,  early-Victorian  old  lady  in  a  play  done 
for  the  most  fashionable  and  popular  actor  manager  of  the 
most  "  drawing-room "  of  West  End  theaters,  where  one  saw 
royalty  in  the  royal  box,  with  bouquets  on  every  side,  the  or 
chestra  breaking  off  in  the  middle  of  a  strain  to  play  "  God 
Save  the  Queen,"  and  the  audience  standing  up  as  the  royal 
party  came  in  —  that  was  her  idea.  She  carried  it  out,  steering 
Miss  Alicia  with  finished  tact  through  the  shoals  and  rapids  of 
her  timidities.  And  the  result  was  wonderful;  color, —  or, 
rather,  shades, —  textures,  and  forms  were  made  subservient  by 
real  genius.  Miss  Alicia  —  as  she  was  turned  out  when  the 
wardrobe  was  complete  —  might  have  been  an  elderly  little 
duchess  of  sweet  and  modest  good  taste  in  the  dress  of  forty  years 
earlier.  It  took  time,  but  some  of  the  things  were  prepared  as 
though  by  magic,  and  the  night  the  first  boxes  were  delivered  at 
the  hotel  Miss  Alicia,  on  going  to  bed,  in  kneeling  down  to  her 
devotions  prayed  fervently  that  she  might  not  be  "  led  astray  by 
fleshly  desires,"  and  that  her  gratitude  might  be  acceptable,  and 
not  stained  by  a  too  great  joy  "  in  the  things  which  corrupt." 


T.    TEMBAROM  225 

The  very  next  day  occurred  Rose.  She  was  the  young  person 
to  whom  Pearson  was  engaged,  and  it  appeared  that  if  Miss 
Alicia  would  make  up  her  mind  to  oblige  Mr.  Temple  Barholm 
by  allowing  the  girl  to  come  to  her  as  lady's-maid,  even  if  only 
temporarily,  she  would  be  doing  a  most  kind  and  charitable 
thing.  She  was  a  very  nice,  well-behaved  girl,  and  unfortu 
nately  she  had  felt  herself  forced  to  leave  her  place  because  her 
mistress's  husband  was  not  at  all  a  nice  man.  He  had  shown 
himself  so  far  from  nice  that  Pearson  had  been  most  unhappy, 
and  Rose  had  been  compelled  to  give  notice,  though  she  had  no 
other  situation  in  prospect  and  her  mother  was  dependent  on 
her.  This  was  without  doubt  not  Mr.  Temple  Barholm's  exact 
phrasing  of  the  story,  but  it  was  what  Miss  Alicia  gathered,  and 
what  moved  her  deeply.  It  was  so  cruel  and  so  sad!  That 
wicked  man !  That  poor  girl !  She  had  never  had  a  lady's- 
maid,  and  might  be  rather  at  a  loss  at  first,  but  it  was  only  like 
,Mr.  Temple  Barholm's  kind  heart  to  suggest  such  a  way  of 
helping  the  girl  and  poor  Pearson. 

So  occurred  Rose,  a  pretty  creature  whose  blue  eyes  suppressed 
grateful  tears  as  she  took  Miss  Alicia's  instructions  during  their 
first  interview.  And  Pearson  arrived  the  same  night,  and,  wait 
ing  upon  Tembarom,  stood  before  him,  and  with  perfect  respect, 
choked. 

"  Might  I  thank  you,  if  you  please,  sir,"  he  began,  recovering 
himself  — "  might  I  thank  you  and  say  how  grateful  —  Rose 
and  me,  sir — "  and  choked  again. 

"  I  told  you  it  would  be  all  right,"  answered  Tembarom.  "  It 
is  all  right.  I  wish  I  was  fixed  like  you  are,  Pearson." 

When  the  Countess  of  Mallowe  called,  Rose  had  just  dressed 
Miss  Alicia  for  the  afternoon  in  one  of  the  most  perfect  of  the 
evolutions  of  Mrs.  Mellish's  idea.  It  was  a  definite  creation,  as 
even  Lady  Mallowe  detected  the  moment  her  eyes  fell  upon  it. 
Its  hue  was  dull,  soft  gray,  and  how  it  managed  to  concede  points 
and  elude  suggestions  of  modes  interred,  and  yet  remain  what  it 
did  remain,  and  accord  perfectly  with  the  side  ringlets  and  the 
lace  cap  of  Mechlin,  only  dressmaking  genius  could  have  ex 
plained.  The  mere  wearing  of  it  gave  Miss  Alicia  a  support  and 
courage  which  she  could  scarcely  believe  to  be  her  own.  When 


226  T.    TEMBAKOM 

the  cards  of  Lady  Mallowe  and  Lady  Joan  Fayre  were  brought 
up  to  her,  she  was  absolutely  not  really  frightened ;  a  little  nerv 
ous  for  a  moment,  perhaps,  but  frightened,  no.  A  few  weeks 
of  relief  and  ease,  of  cheery  consideration,  of  perfectly  good 
treatment  and  good  food  and  good  clothes,  had  begun  a  rebuild 
ing  of  the  actual  cells  of  her. 

Lady  Mallowe  entered  alone.  She  was  a  handsome  person, 
and  astonishingly  young  when  considered  as  the  mother  of  a 
daughter  of  twenty-seven.  She  wore  a  white  veil,  and  looked 
pink  through  it.  She  swept  into  the  room,  and  shook  hands 
with  Miss  Alicia  with  delicate  warmth. 

"  We  do  not  really  know  each  other  at  all,"  she  said.  "  It  is 
disgraceful  how  little  relatives  see  of  one  another." 

The  disgrace,  if  measured  by  the  extent  of  the  relationship, 
was  not  immense.  Perhaps  this  thought  flickered  across  Miss 
Alicia's  mind  among  a  number  of  other  things.  She  had  heard 
"  dear  papa "  on  Lady  Mallowe,  and,  howsoever  lacking  in, 
graces,  the  vicar  of  Rowcroft  had  not  lacked  an  acrid  shrewd 
ness.  Miss  Alicia's  sensitively  self-accusing  soul  shrank  before 
a  hasty  realization  of  the  fact  that  if  he  had  been  present  when 
the  cards  were  brought  up,  he  would,  on  glancing  over  them 
through  his  spectacles,  have  jerked  out  immediately :  "  What 
does  the  woman  want  ?  She  ?s  come  to  get  something."  Miss 
Alicia  wished  she  had  not  been  so  immediately  beset  by  this 
mental  vision. 

Lady  Mallowe  had  come  for  something.  She  had  come  to  be 
amiable  to  Miss  Temple  Barholm  and  to  establish  relations  with 
her. 

"Joan  should  have  been  here  to  meet  me,"  she  explained. 
"  Her  dressmaker  is  keeping  her,  of  course.  She  will  be  so  an 
noyed.  She  wanted  very  much  to  come  with  me." 

It  was  further  revealed  that  she  might  arrive  at  any  moment, 
which  gave  Miss  Alicia  an  opportunity  to  express,  with  pretty 
grace,  the  hope  that  she  would,  and  her  trust  that  she  was  quite 
well. 

"  She  is  always  well,"  Lady  Mallowe  returned.  "  And  she  is 
of  course  as  interested  as  we  all  are  in  this  romantic  thing.  It 
is  perfectly  delicious,  like  a  three-yolumed  novel." 


T.    TEMBAROM  227 

"  It  is  romantic,"  said  Miss  Alicia,  wondering  how  much  her 
visitor  knew  or  thought  she  knew,  and  what  circumstances  would 
present  themselves  to  her  as  delicious. 

"  Of  course  one  has  heard  only  the  usual  talk  one  always  hears 
when  everybody  is  chattering  about  a  thing,"  Lady  Mallowe  re 
plied,  with  a  propitiating  smile.  "  No  one  really  knows  what  is 
true  and  what  is  n't.  But  it  is  nice  to  notice  that  all  the  gossip 
speaks  so  well  of  Him.  No  one  seems  to  pretend  that  he  is  any 
thing  but  extremely  nice  himself,  notwithstanding  his  disad 
vantages." 

She  kept  a  fine  hazel  eye,  surrounded  by  a  line  which  artistic 
ally  represented  itself  as  black  lashes,  steadily  resting  on  Miss 
Alicia  as  she  said  the  last  words. 

"  He  is,"  said  Miss  Alicia,  with  gentle  firmness,  "  nicer  than  I 
had  ever  imagined  any  young  man  could  be  —  far  nicer." 

Lady  Mallowe's  glance  round  the  luxurious  private  sitting- 
room  and  over  the  perfect  "  idea  "  of  Mrs.  Mellish  was  so  swift 
as  to  be  almost  imperceptible. 

"  How  delightful !  "  she  said.  "  He  must  be  unusually  agree 
able,  or  you  would  not  have  consented  to  stay  and  take  care  of 
him." 

"  I  cannot  tell  you  how  happy  I  am  to  have  been  asked  to  stay 
with  him,  Lady  Mallowe,"  Miss  Alicia  replied,  the  gentle  firm 
ness  becoming  a  soft  dignity. 

"  Which  of  course  shows  all  the  more  how  attractive  he  must 
be.  And  in  view  of  the  past  lack  of  advantages,  what  a  help  you 
can  be  to  him!  It  is  quite  wonderful  for  him  to  have  a  rela 
tive  at  hand  who  is  an  Englishwoman  and  familiar  with  things 
he  will  feel  he  must  learn." 

A  perhaps  singular  truth  is  that  but  for  the  unmistakable 
nature  of  the  surroundings  she  quickly  took  in  the  significance 
of,  and  but  for  the  perfection  of  the  carrying  out  of  Mrs.  Mel- 
lish's  delightful  idea,  it  is  more  than  probable  that  her  lady 
ship's  manner  of  approaching  Miss  Alicia  and  certain  subjects  on 
which  she  desired  enlightenment  would  have  been  much  more 
direct  and  much  less  propitiatory.  Extraordinary  as  it  was, 
"  the  creature  " —  she  thought  of  Tembarom  as  "  the  creature  " 
—  had  plainly  been  so  pleased  with  the  chance  of  being  properly 


228  T.    TEMBAROM 

coached  that  he  had  put  everything,  so  to  speak,  in  the  little 
old  woman's  hands.  She  had  got  a  hold  upon  him.  It  was 
quite  likely  that  to  regard  her  as  a  definite  factor  would  only  be 
the  part  of  the  merest  discretion.  She  was  evidently  quite  in 
love  with  him  in  her  early-Victorian,  spinster  way.  One  had  to 
be  prudent  with  women  like  that  who  had  got  hold  of  a  male 
creature  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives,  and  were  almost  un 
aware  of  their  own  power.  Their  very  unconsciousness  made 
them  a  dangerous  influence. 

With  a  masterly  review  of  these  facts  in  her  mind  Lady  Mal- 
lowe  went  on  with  a  fluent  and  pleasant  talk,  through  the 
medium  of  which  she  managed  to  convey  a  large  number  of 
things  Miss  Alicia  was  far  from  being  clever  enough  to  realize 
she  was  talking  about.  She  lightly  waved  wings  of  suggestion 
across  the  scene,  she  dropped  infinitesimal  seeds  in  passing,  she 
left  faint  echoes  behind  her  —  the  kind  of  echoes  one  would 
find  oneself  listening  to  and  trying  to  hear  as  definitely  formed 
sounds.  She  had  been  balancing  herself  on  a  precarious  plat 
form  of  rank  and  title,  unsupported  by  any  sordid  foundation 
of  a  solid  nature,  through  a  lifetime  spent  in  London.  She 
had  learned  to  catch  fiercely  at  straws  of  chance,  and  bitterly  to 
regret  the  floating  past  of  the  slightest,  which  had  made  of  her 
a  finished  product  of  her  kind.  She  talked  lightly,  and  was 
sometimes  almost  witty.  To  her  hearer  she  seemed  to  know 
every  brilliant  personage  and  to  be  familiar  with  every  dazzling 
thing.  She  knew  well  what  social  habits  and  customs  meant, 
what  their  value,  or  lack  of  value,  was.  There  were  customs, 
she  implied  skilfully,  so  established  by  time  that  it  was  impos 
sible  to  ignore  them.  Eelationships,  for  instance,  stood  for  so 
much  that  was  fine  in  England  that  one  was  sometimes  quite 
touched  by  the  far-reachingness  of  family  loyalty.  The  head  of 
the  house  of  a  great  estate  represented  a  certain  power  in  the 
matter  of  upholding  the  dignity  of  his  possessions,  of  caring  for 
his  tenantry,  of  standing  for  proper  hospitality  and  friendly 
family  feeling.  It  was  quite  beautiful  as  one  often  saw  it. 
Throughout  the  talk  there  were  several  references  to  Joan,  who 
really  must  come  in  shortly,  which  were  very  interesting  to  Miss 
Alicia.  Lady  Joan,  Miss  Alicia  heard  casually,  was  a  great 


T.    TEMBAROM  229 

beauty.  Her  perfection  and  her  extreme  cleverness  had  made 
her  perhaps  a  trifle  difficile.  She  had  not  done  — •  Lady  Mallowe 
put  it  with  a  lightness  of  phrasing  which  was  delicacy  itself  — 
what  she  might  have  done,  with  every  exalted  advantage,  so 
many  times.  She  had  a  profound  nature.  Here  Lady  Mallowe 
waved  away,  as  it  were,  a  ghost  of  a  sigh.  Since  Miss  Temple 
Barholm  was  a  relative,  she  had  no  doubt  heard  of  the  unfor 
tunate,  the  very  sad  incident  which  her  mother  sometimes  feared 
prejudiced  the  girl  even  yet. 

"  You  mean  —  poor  Jem !  "  broke  forth  involuntarily  from 
Miss  Alicia's  lips.  Lady  Mallowe  stared  a  little. 

"Do  you  call  him  that?"  she  asked.  "Did  you  know  him, 
then?" 

"  I  loved  him,"  answered  Miss  Alicia,  winking  her  eyes  to 
keep  back  the  moisture  in  them,  "  though  it  was  only  when  he 
was  a  little  boy." 

"  Oh,"  said  Lady  Mallowe,  with  a  sudden,  singular  softness, 
"I  must  tell  Joan  that." 

Lady  Joan  had  not  appeared  even  after  they  had  had  tea 
and  her  mother  went  away,  but  somehow  Miss  Alicia  had  reached 
a  vaguely  yearning  feeling  for  her  and  wished  very  much  the 
dressmaker  had  released  her.  She  was  quite  stirred  when  it 
revealed  itself  almost  at  the  last  moment  that  in  a  few  weeks 
both  she  and  Lady  Mallowe  were  to  pay  a  visit  at  no  great  dis 
tance  from  Temple  Barholm  itself,  and  that  her  ladyship  would 
certainly  arrange  to  drive  over  to  continue  her  delightful  ac 
quaintance  and  to  see  the  beautiful  old  place  again. 

"In  any  case  one  must,  even  if  he  lived  in  lonely  state,  pay 
one's  respects  to  the  head  of  the  house.  The  truth  is,  of 
course,  one  is  extremely  anxious  to  meet  him,  and  it  is  charming 
to  know  that  one  is  not  merely  invading  the  privacy  of  a  bache 
lor,"  Lady  Mallowe  put  it. 

"  She  '11  come  for  you,"  Little  Ann  had  soberly  remarked. 

Tembarom  remembered  the  look  in  her  quiet,  unresentful  blue 
eyes  when  he  came  in  to  dinner  and  Miss  Alicia  related  to  him 
the  events  of  the  afternoon. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


»HE  spring,  when  they  traveled  back  to  the 
north,  was  so  perceptibly  nearer  that  the 
fugitive  soft  days  strayed  in  advance  at 
intervals  that  were  briefer.  They  chose  one 
for  their  journey,  and  its  clear  sunshine  and 
hints  at  faint  greenness  were  so  exhilara 
ting  to  Miss  Alicia  that  she  was  a  companion 
to  make  any  journey  an  affair  to  rank  with 
holidays  and  adventures.  The  strange  lux 
ury  of  traveling  in  a  reserved  first-class 
carriage,  of  being  made  timid  by  no  sense 
of  unfitness  of  dress  or  luggage,  would  have 
filled  her  with  grateful  rapture;  but  Rose, 
journeying  with  Pearson  a  few  coaches  behind,  appeared  at  the 
carriage  window  at  every  important  station  to  say,  "  Is  there 
anything  I  may  do  for  you,  ma'am  ?"  And  there  really  never 
was  anything  she  could  do,  because  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  re 
membered  everything  which  could  make  her  comfort  perfect. 
In  the  moods  of  one  who  searches  the  prospect  for  suggestions 
as  to  pleasure  he  can  give  to  himself  by  delighting  a  dear  child, 
he  had  found  and  bought  for  her  a  most  elegant  little  dressing- 
bag,  with  the  neatest  of  plain-gold  fittings  beautifully  initialed. 
It  reposed  upon  the  cushioned  seat  near  her,  and  made  her 
heart  beat  every  time  she  caught  sight  of  it  anew.  How  won 
derful  it  would  be  if  poor  dear,  darling  mama  could  look  down 
and  see  everything  and  really  know  what  happiness  had  been 
vouchsafed  to  her  unworthy  child! 

Having  a  vivid  recollection  of  the  journey  made  with  Mr. 
Palford,  Tembarom  felt  that  his  whole  world  had  changed  for 
him.  The  landscape  had  altered  its  aspect.  Miss  Alicia 
pointed  out  bits  of  freshening  grass,  was  sure  of  the  breaking 
of  brown  leaf-buds,  and  more  than  once  breathlessly  suspected 

230 


T.    TEMBAROM  231 

a  primrose  in  a  sheltered  hedge  corner.  A  country-bred  woman, 
with  country-bred  keenness  of  eye  and  a  country-bred  sense  of 
the  seasons7  change,  she  saw  so  much  that  he  had  never  known 
that  she  began  to  make  him  see  also.  Bare  trees  would  be 
thick-leaved  nesting-places,  hedges  would  be  white  with  haw 
thorn,  and  hold  blue  eggs  and  chirps  and  songs.  Skylarks 
would  spring  out  of  the  fields  and  soar  into  the  sky,  dropping 
crystal  chains  of  joyous  trills.  The  cottage  gardens  would  be 
full  of  flowers,  there  would  be  poppies  gleaming  scarlet  in  the 
corn,  and  in  buttercup-time  all  the  green  grass  would  be  a  sheet 
of  shining  gold. 

"  When  it  all  happens  I  shall  be  like  a  little  East-Sider  taken 
for  a  day  in  the  country.  I  shall  be  asking  questions  at  every 
step,"  Tembarom  said.  "Temple  Barholm  must  be  pretty  fine 
then." 

"  It  is  so  lovely/'  said  Miss  Alicia,  turning  to  him  almost 
solemnly,  "that  sometimes  it  makes  one  really  lose  one's 
breath/' 

He  looked  out  of  the  window  with  sudden  wistfulness. 

"I  wish  Ann — "  he  began  and  then,  seeing  the  repressed 
question  in  her  eyes,  made  up  his  mind. 

He  told  her  about  Little  Ann.  He  did  not  use  very  many 
words,  but  she  knew  a  great  deal  when  he  had  finished.  And 
her  spinster  soul  was  thrilled.  Neither  she  nor  poor  Emily 
had  ever  had  an  admirer,  and  it  was  not  considered  refined  for 
unsought  females  to  discuss  "  such  subjects."  Domestic  de 
lirium  over  the  joy  of  an  engagement  in  families  in  which 
daughters  were  a  drug  she  had  seen.  It  was  indeed  inevitable 
that  there  should  be  more  rejoicing  over  one  Miss  Timson  who 
had  strayed  from  the  fold  into  the  haven  of  marriage  than  over 
the  ninety-nine  Misses  Timson  who  remained  behind.  But 
she  had  never  known  intimately  any  one  who  was  in  love  — 
really  in  love.  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  must  be.  When  he  spoke 
of  Little  Ann  he  flushed  shyly  and  his  eyes  looked  so  touching 
and  nice.  His  voice  sounded  different,  and  though  of  course 
his  odd  New  York  expressions  were  always  rather  puzzling,  she 
felt  as  though  she  saw  things  she  had  had  no  previous  knowl 
edge  of  —  things  which  thrilled  her. 


232  T.    TEMBAEOM 

"  She  must  be  a  very  —  very  nice  girl,"  she  ventured  at 
length.  "  I  am  afraid  I  have  never  been  into  old  Mrs.  Hutch- 
inson's  cottage.  She  is  quite  comfortably  off  in  her  way,  and 
does  not  need  parish  care.  I  wish  I  had  seen  Miss  Hutchin- 
son." 

"I  wish  she  had  seen  you/'  was  Tembarom's  answer. 

Miss  Alicia  reflected. 

"  She  must  be  very  clever  to  have  such  —  sensible  views," 
she  remarked. 

If  he  had  remained  in  New  York,  and  there  had  been  no 
question  of  his  inheriting  Temple  Barholm,  the  marriage  would 
have  been  most  suitable.  But  however  "  superior  "  she  might 
be,  a  vision  of  old  Mrs.  Hutchinson's  granddaughter  as  the 
wife  of  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,  and  of  noisy  old  Mr.  Hutchinson 
as  his  father-in-law  was  a  staggering  thing. 

"  You  think  they  were  sensible  ?  "  asked  Tembarom.  "  Well, 
she  never  did  anything  that  wasn't.  So  I  guess  they  were. 
And  what  she  says  goes.  I  wanted  you  to  know,  anyhow.  I 
would  n't  like  you  not  to  know.  I  'm  too  fond  of  you,  Miss 
Alicia."  And  he  put  his  hand  round  her  neat  glove  and 
squeezed  it.  The  tears  of  course  came  into  her  tender  eyes. 
Emotion  of  any  sort  always  expressed  itself  in  her  in  this 
early- Victorian  manner. 

"  This  Lady  Joan  girl/'  he  said  suddenly  not  long  after 
ward,  "  is  n't  she  the  kind  that  I  'm  to  get  used  to  —  the  kind 
in  the  pictorial  magazine  Ann  talked  about?  I  bought  one  at 
the  news-stand  at  the  depot  before  we  started.  I  wanted  to 
get  on  to  the  pictures  and  see  what  they  did  to  me." 

He  found  the  paper  among  his  belongings  and  regarded  it 
with  the  expression  of  a  serious  explorer.  It  opened  at  a 
page  of  illustrations  of  slim  goddesses  in  court  dresses.  By 
actual  measurement,  if  regarded  according  to  scale,  each  was 
about  ten  feet  high;  but  their  long  lines,  combining  them 
selves  with  court  trains,  waving  plumes,  and  falling  veils,  pro 
duced  an  awe-inspiring  effect.  Tembarom  gazed  at  them  in 
absorbed  silence. 

"Is  she  something  like  any  of  these?"  he  inquired  finally. 

Miss  Alicia  looked  through  her  glasses. 


T.    TEMBAROM  233 

"  Far  more  beautiful,  I  believe,"  she  answered.  "  These  are 
only  fashion-plates,  and  I  have  heard  that  she  is  a  most  strik 
ing  girl." 

"  A  beaut'  from  Beautsville !  "  he  said.  "  So  that  's  what 
I  'm  up  against !  I  wonder  how  much  use  that  kind  of  a  girl 
would  have  for  me." 

He  gave  a  good  deal  of  attention  to  the  paper  before  he  laid 
it  aside.  As  she  watched  him,  Miss  Alicia  became  gradually 
aware  of  the  existence  of  a  certain  hint  of  determined  square 
ness  in  his  boyish  jaw.  It  was  perhaps  not  much  more  than  a 
hint,  but  it  really  was  there,  though  she  had  not  noticed  it  be 
fore.  In  fact,  it  usually  hid  itself  behind  his  slangy  youth- 
fulness  and  his  readiness  for  any  good  cheer. 

One  may  as  well  admit  that  it  sustained  him  during  his 
novitiate  and  aided  him  to  pass  through  it  without  ignominy  or 
disaster.  He  was  strengthened  also  by  a  private  resolve  to 
bear  himself  in  such  a  manner  as  would  at  least  do  decent 
credit  to  Little  Ann  and  her  superior  knowledge.  With  the 
curious  eyes  of  servants,  villagers,  and  secretly  outraged  neigh 
borhood  upon  him,  he  was  shrewd  enough  to  know  that  he 
might  easily  become  a  perennial  fount  of  grotesque  anecdote, 
to  be  used  as  a  legitimate  source  of  entertainment  in  cottages 
over  the  consumption  of  beans  and  bacon,  as  well  as  at  great 
houses  when  dinner-table  talk  threatened  to  become  dull  if  not 
enlivened  by  some  spice.  He  would  not  have  thought  of  this 
or  been  disturbed  by  it  but  for  Ann.  She  knew,  and  he  was  not 
going  to  let  her  be  met  on  her  return  from  America  with  what 
he  called  "  a  lot  of  funny  dope  "  about  him. 

"  No  girl  would  like  it,"  he  said  to  himself.  "  And  the 
way  she  said  she  '  cared  too  much '  just  put  it  up  to  me  to  see 
that  the  fellow  she  cares  for  does  n't  let  himself  get  laughed 
at." 

Though  he  still  continued  to  be  jocular  on  subjects  which  to 
his  valet  seemed  almost  sacred,  Pearson  was  relieved  to  find 
that  his  employer  gradually  gave  himself  into  his  hands  in  a 
manner  quite  amenable.  In  the  touching  way  in  which  nine 
out  of  ten  nice,  domesticated  American  males  obey  the  behests 
of  the  women  they  are  fond  of,  he  had  followed  Ann's  direc- 


234  T.    TEMBAKOM 

tions  to  the  letter.  Guided  by  the  adept  Pearson,  he  had  gone 
to  the  best  places  in  London  and  purchased  the  correct  .things, 
returning  to  Temple  Barholm  with  a  wardrobe  to  which  any 
gentleman  might  turn  at  any  moment  without  a  question. 

"  He 's  got  good  shoulders,  though  he  does  slouch  a  bit," 
Pearson  said  to  Rose.  "  And  a  gentleman's  shoulders  are  more 
than  half  the  battle." 

What  Tembarom  himself  felt  cheered  by  was  the  certainty 
that  if  Ann  saw  him  walking  about  the  park  or  the  village,  or 
driving  out  with  Miss  Alicia  in  the  big  landau,  or  taking  her 
in  to  dinner  every  evening,  or  even  going  to  church  with  her, 
she  would  not  have  occasion  to  flush  at  sight  of  him. 

The  going  to  church  was  one  of  the  duties  of  his  position  he 
found  out.  Miss  Alicia  "put  him  on"  to  that.  It  seemed 
that  he  had  to  present  himself  to  the  villagers  "  as  an  ex 
ample."  If  the  Temple  Barholm  pews  were  empty,  the  vil 
lagers,  not  being  incited  to  devotional  exercise  by  his  exalted 
presence,  would  feel  at  liberty  to  remain  at  home,  and  in  the 
irreligious  undress  of  shirt-sleeves  sit  and  smoke  their  pipes, 
or,  worse  still,  gather  at  "the  Hare  and  Hounds"  and  drink 
beer.  Also,  it  would  not  be  "at  all  proper"  not  to  go  to 
church. 

Pearson  produced  a  special  cut  of  costume  for  this  cere 
mony,  and  Tembarom  walked  with  Miss  Alicia  across  the  park 
to  the  square-towered  Norman  church. 

In  a  position  of  dignity  the  Temple  Barholm  pews  over 
looked  the  congregation.  There  was  the  great  square  pew  for 
the  family,  with  two  others  for  servants.  Footmen  and  house 
maids  gazed  reverentially  at  prayer-books.  Pearson,  making 
every  preparation  respectfully  to  declare  himself  a  "  miserable 
sinner"  when  the  proper  moment  arrived,  could  scarcely  re 
strain  a  rapid  side  glance  as  the  correctly  cut  and  fitted  and 
entirely  "  suitable  "  work  of  his  hands  opened  the  pew-door  for 
Miss  Alicia,  followed  her  in,  and  took  his  place. 

Let  not .  the  fact  that  he  had  never  been  to  church  before  be 
counted  against  him.  There  was  nothing  very  extraordinary 
in  the  fact.  He  had  felt  no  antipathy  to  church-going,  but 
he  had  not  by  chance  fallen  under  proselyting  influence,  and 


T.    TEMBAROM  235 

it  had  certainly  never  occurred  to  him  that  he  had  any  place 
among  the  well-dressed,  comfortable-looking  people  he  had  seen 
flocking  into  places  of  worship  in  New  York.  As  far  as  reli 
gious  observances  were  concerned,  he  was  an  unadulterated 
heathen,  and  was  all  the  more  to  be  congratulated  on  being  a 
heathen  of  genial  tendencies. 

The  very  large  pew,  under  the  stone  floor  of  which  his  an 
cestors  had  slept  undisturbedly  for  centuries,  interested  him 
greatly.  A  recumbent  marble  crusader  in  armor,  with  feet 
crossed  in  the  customary  manner,  fitted  into  a  sort  of  niche  in 
one  side  of  the  wall.  There  were  carved  tablets  and  many  in 
scriptions  in  Latin  wheresoever  one  glanced.  The  place  was 
like  a  room.  A  heavy,  round  table,  on  which  lay  prayer-books, 
Bibles,  and  hymn-books,  occupied  the  middle.  About  it  were 
arranged  beautiful  old  chairs,  with  hassocks  to  kneel  on.  To 
ward  a  specially  imposing  chair  with  arms  Miss  Alicia  directed 
him  with  a  glance.  It  was  apparently  his  place.  He  was  go 
ing  to  sit  down  when  he  saw  Miss  Alicia  gently  push  forward 
a  hassock  with  her  foot,  and  kneel  on  it,  covering  her  face  with 
her  hands  as  she  bent  her  head.  He  hastily  drew  forth  his  has 
sock  and  followed  her  example. 

That  was  it,  was  it  ?  It  was  n't  only  a  matter  of  listening  to 
a  sermon;  you  had  to  do  things.  He  had  better  watch  out  and 
see  that  he  did  n't  miss  anything.  She  did  n't  know  it  was  his 
first  time,  and  it  might  worry  her  to  the  limit  if  he  didn't 
put  it  over  all  right.  One  of  the  things  he  had  noticed  in  her 
was  her  fear  of  attracting  attention  by  failing  to  do  exactly 
the  "  proper  thing."  If  he  made  a  fool  of  himself  by  kneeling 
down  when  he  ought  to  stand  up,  or  lying  down  when  he  ought 
to  sit,  she  'd  get  hot  all  over,  thinking  what  the  villagers  or  the 
other  people  would  say.  Well,  Ann  had  n't  wanted  him  to  look 
different  from  other  fellows  or  to  make  breaks.  He  'd  look  out 
from  start  to  finish.  He  directed  a  watchful  eye  at  Miss  Alicia 
through  his  fingers.  She  remained  kneeling  a  few  moments, 
and  then  very  quietly  got  up.  He  rose  with  her,  and  took  his 
big  chair  when  she  sat  down.  He  breathed  more  freely  when 
they  had  got  that  far.  That  was  the  first  round. 

It  was  not  a  large  churdi,  but  a  gray  and  solemn  impression 


236  T.    TEMBAROM 

of  dignity  brooded  over  it.  It  was  dim  with  light,  which  fell 
through  stained-glass  memorial  windows  set  deep  in  the  thick 
stone  walls.  The  silence  which  reigned  throughout  its  spaces 
seemed  to  Tembarom  of  a  new  kind,  different  from  the  silence 
of  the  big  house.  The  occasional  subdued  rustle  of  turned 
prayer-book  leaves  seemed  to  accentuate  it;  the  most  careful 
movement  could  not  conceal  itself;  a  slight  cough  was  a 
startling  thing.  The  way,  Tembarom  thought,  they  could  get 
things  dead-still  in  English  places! 

The  chimes,  which  had  been  ringing  their  last  summons  to 
the  tardy,  slackened  their  final  warning  notes,  became  still 
slower,  stopped.  There  was  a  slight  stir  in  the  benches  occu 
pied  by  the  infant  school.  It  suggested  that  something  new 
was  going  to  happen.  From  some  unseen  place  came  the  sound 
of  singing  voices  —  boyish  voices  and  the  voices  of  men. 
Tembarom  involuntarily  turned  his  head.  Out  of  the  unseen 
place  came  a  procession  in  white  robes.  Great  Scott !  every  one 
was  standing  up!  He  must  stand  up,  too.  The  boys  and 
men  in  white  garments  filed  into  their  seats.  An  elderly  man, 
also  in  white  robes,  separated  himself  from  them,  and,  going 
into  his  special  place,  kneeled  down.  Then  he  rose  and  began 
to  read: 

"When  the  wicked  man  turneth  away  from  his  wicked 
ness  — " 

Tembarom  took  the  open  book  which  Miss  Alicia  had  very 
delicately  pushed  toward  him.  He  read  the  first  words, —  that 
was  plain  sailing, —  then  he  seemed  to  lose  his  place.  Miss 
Alicia  turned  a  leaf.  He  turned  one  also. 

"Dearly  beloved  brethren — " 

There  you  were.  This  was  once  more  plain  sailing.  He 
could  follow  it.  What  was  the  matter  with  Miss  Alicia?  She 
was  kneeling  again,  everybody  was  kneeling.  Where  was  the 
hassock?  He  went  down  upon  his  knees,  hoping  Miss  Alicia 
had  not  seen  that  he  was  n't  going  to  kneel  at  all.  Then  when 
the  minister  said  "  Amen,"  the  congregation  said  it,  too,  and 
he  came  in  too  late,  so  that  his  voice  sounded  out  alone.  He 
must  watch  that.  Then  the  minister  knelt,  and  all  the  people 
prayed  aloud  with  him.  With  the  book  before  him  he  managed 


T.    TEMBAEOM  237 

to  get  in  after  the  first  few  words;  but  he  was  not  ready  with 
the  responses,  and  in  the  middle  of  them  everybody  stood  up 
again.  And  then  the  organ  played,  and  every  one  sang.  He 
couldn't  sing,  anyhow,  and  he  knew  he  couldn't  catch  on  to 
the  kind  of  thing  they  were  doing.  He  hoped  Miss  Alicia 
wouldn't  mind  his  standing  up  and  holding  his  book  and  do 
ing  nothing.  He  could  not  help  seeing  that  eyes  continually 
turned  .toward  him.  They'd  notice  every  darned  break  he 
made,  and  Miss  Alicia  would  know  they  did.  He  felt  quite  hot 
more  than  once.  He  watched  Miss  Alicia  like  a  hawk;  he  sat 
down  and  listened  to  reading,  he  stood  up  and  listened  to  sing 
ing  ;  he  kneeled,  he  tried  to  chime  in  with  "  Amens "  and  to 
keep  up  with  Miss  Alicia's  bending  of  head  and  knee.  But 
the  creed,  with  its  sudden  turn  toward  the  altar,  caught  him 
unawares,  he  lost  himself  wholly  in  the  psalms,  the  collects 
left  him  in  deep  water,  hopeless  of  ever  finding  his  place  again, 
and  the  litany  baffled  him,  when  he  was  beginning  to  feel  safe, 
by  changing  from  "  miserable  sinners "  to  "  Spare  us  Good 
Lord"  and  "We  beseech  thee  to  hear  us."  If  he  could  just 
have  found  the  place  he  would  have  been  all  right,  but  an  hon 
est  anxiety  to  be  right  excited  him,  and  the  fear  of  embar 
rassing  Miss  Alicia  by  going  wrong  made  the  morning  a  strenu 
ous  thing.  He  was  so  relieved  to  find  he  might  sit  still  when 
the  sermon  began  that  he  gave  the  minister  an  attention  which 
might  have  marked  him,  to  the  chance  beholder,  as  a  religious 
enthusiast. 

By  the  time  the  service  had  come  to  an  end  the  stately  peace 
of  the  place  had  seemed  to  sink  into  his  being  and  become  part 
of  himself.  The  voice  of  the  minister  bestowing  his  blessing, 
the  voices  of  the  white-clothed  choir  floating  up  into  the  vaulted 
roof,  stirred  him  to  a  remote  pleasure.  He  liked  it,  or  he  knew 
he  would  like  it  when  he  knew  what  to  do.  The  filing  out  of 
the  choristers,  the  silent  final  prayer,  the  soft  rustle  of  people 
rising  gently  from  their  knees,  somehow  actually  moved  him 
by  its  suggestion  of  something  before  unknown.  He  was  a 
heathen  still,  but  a  heathen  vaguely  stirred. 

He  was  very  quiet  as  he  walked  home  across  the  park  with 
Miss  Alicia. 


238  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  How  did  you  enjoy  the  sermon  ? "  she  asked  with  much 
sweetness. 

"  I  'm  not  used  to  sermons,  but  it  seemed  all  right  to  me,"  he 
answered.  "  What  I  've  got  to  get  on  to  is  knowing  when  to 
stand  up  and  when  to  sit  down.  I  was  n't  much  of  a  winner 
at  it  this  morning.  I  guess  you  noticed  that." 

But  his  outward  bearing  had  been  much  more  composed  than 
his  inward  anxiety  had  allowed  him  to  believe.  His  hesita 
tions  had  not  produced  the  noticeable  effect  he  had  feared. 

"  Do  you  mean  you  are  not  quite  familiar  with  the  service  ?  " 
she  said.  Poor  dear  boy!  he  had  perhaps  not  been  able  to 
go  to  church  regularly  at  all. 

"  I  'm  not  familiar  with  any  service,"  he  answered  without 
prejudice.  "  I  never  went  to  church  before." 

She  slightly  started  and  then  smiled. 

"  Oh,  you  mean  you  have  never  been  to  the  Church  of  Eng 
land,"  she  said. 

Then  he  saw  that,  if  he  told  her  the  exact  truth,  she  would 
be  frightened  and  shocked.  She  would  not  know  what  to  say 
or  what  to  think.  To  her  unsophisticated  mind  only  murder 
ers  and  thieves  and  criminals  never  went  to  church.  She  just 
did  n't  know.  Why  should  she  ?  So  he  smiled  also. 

"  No,  I  've  never  been  to  the  Church  of  England,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


HE  country  was  discreetly  conservative  in  its 
social  attitude.  The  gulf  between  it  and  the 
new  owner  of  Temple  Barholm  was  too  wide 
and  deep  to  be  crossed  without  effort  com 
bined  with  immense  mental  agility.  It  was 
on  the  whole,  much  easier  not  to  begin  a 
thing  at  all  than  to  begin  it  and  find  one 
must  hastily  search  about  for  not  too  notice 
able  methods  of  ending  it.  A  few  unimpor 
tant,  tentative  calls  were  made,  and  several 
ladies  who  had  remained  unaware  of  Miss 
Alicia  during  her  first  benefactor's  time 
drove  over  to  see  what  she  was  like  and  per 
haps  by  chance  hear  something  of  interest.  One  or  two  of 
them  who  saw  Tembarom  went  away  puzzled  and  amazed.  He 
did  not  drop  his  h's,  which  they  had  of  course  expected,  and  he 
was  well  dressed,  and  not  bad-looking;  but  it  was  frequently 
impossible  to  understand  what  he  was  talking  about,  he  used 
such  odd  phrases.  He  seemed  good  natured  enough,  and  his  way 
with  little  old  Miss  Temple  Barholm  was  really  quite  nice,  queer 
as  it  was.  It  was  queer  because  he  was  attentive  to  her  in  a 
manner  in  which  young  men  were  not  usually  attentive  to  totally 
insignificant,  elderly  dependents. 

Tembarom  derived  an  extremely  diluted  pleasure  from  the 
visits.  The  few  persons  he  saw  reminded  him  in  varying  de 
grees  of  Mr.  Palford.  They  had  not  before  seen  anything  like 
his  species,  and  they  did  not  know  what  to  do  with  him.  He 
also  did  not  know  what  to  do  with  them.  A  certain  inelasticity 
frustrated  him  at  the  outset.  When,  in  obedience  to  Miss 
Alicia's  instructions,  he  had  returned  the  visits,  he  felt  he  had 
not  gone  far. 

Serious  application  enabled  him  to  find  his  way  through  the 

239 


240  T.    TEMBAROM 

church  service,  and  he  accompanied  Miss  Alicia  to  church  with 
great  regularity.  He  began  to  take  down  the  books  from  the 
library  shelves  and  look  them  over  gravely.  The  days  grad 
ually  ceased  to  appear  so  long,  but  he  had  a  great  deal  of  time 
on  his  hands,  and  he  tried  to  find  ways  of  filling  it.  He  won 
dered  if  Ann  would  be  pleased  if  he  learned  things  out  of  books. 

When  he  tentatively  approached  the  subject  of  literature 
with  Miss  Alicia,  she  glowed  at  the  delightful  prospect  of  his 
reading  aloud  to  her  in  the  evenings  —  "reading  improving 
things  like  history  and  the  poets." 

"  Let  's  take  a  hack  at  it  some  night,"  he  said  pleasantly. 

The  more  a  fellow  knew,  the  better  it  was  for  him,  he  sup 
posed;  but  he  wondered,  if  anything  happened  and  he  went 
back  to  New  York,  how  much  "  improving  things  "  and  poetry 
would  help  a  man  in  doing  business. 

The  first  evening  they  began  with  Gray's  "  Elegy,"  and  Miss 
Alicia  felt  that  it  did  not  exhilarate  him;  she  was  also  obliged 
to  admit  that  he  did  not  read  it  very  well.  But  she  felt  sure 
he  would  improve.  Personally  she  was  touchingly  happy. 
The  sweetly  domestic  picture  of  the  situation,  she  sitting  by 
the  fire  with  her  knitting  and  he  reading  aloud,  moved  and 
delighted  her.  The  next  evening  she  suggested  Tennyson's 
"  Maud."  He  was  not  as  much  stirred  by  it  as  she  had  hoped. 
He  took  a  somewhat  humorous  view  of  it. 

"  He  had  it  pretty  bad,  had  n't  he  ?  "  he  said  of  the  desper 
ate  lover. 

"  Oh,  if  only  you  could  once  have  heard  Sims  Eeeves  sing 
'  Come  into  the  Garden,  Maud ' !  "  she  sighed.  "  A  kind  friend 
once  took  me  to  hear  him,  and  I  have  never,  never  forgotten 
it." 

But  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  notably  did  not  belong  to  the  at 
mosphere  of  impassioned  tenors. 

On  still  another  evening  they  tried  Shakspere.  Miss  Alicia 
felt  that  a  foundation  of  Shakspere  would  be  "  improving " 
indeed.  They  began  with  "  Hamlet." 

He  found  play-reading  difficult  and  Shaksperian  language 
baffling,  but  he  made  his  way  with  determination  until  he 
reached  a  point  where  he  suddenly  grew  quite  red  and  stopped. 


T.    TEMBAROM  241 

"  Say,  have  you  read  this  ?  "  he  inquired  after  his  hesitation. 

"  The  plays  of  Shakspere  are  a  part  of  every  young  lady's 
education/'  she  answered;  "but  I  am  afraid  I  am  not  at  all 
a  .Shaksperian  scholar." 

"  A  young  lady's  education  ?  "  he  repeated.  "  Gee  whizz !  " 
he  added  softly  after  a  pause. 

He  glanced  over  a  page  or  so  hastily,  and  then  laid  the  book 
down. 

"  Say,"  he  suggested,  with  an  evasive  air,  "  let 's  go  over  that 
*  Maud '  one  again.  It  ?s  —  well,  it 's  easier  to  read  aloud." 

The  crude  awkwardness  of  his  manner  suddenly  made  Miss 
Alicia  herself  flush  and  drop  a  stitch  in  her  knitting.  How 
dreadful  of  her  not  to  have  thought  of  that! 

"  The  Elizabethan  age  was,  I  fear,  a  rather  coarse  one  in 
some  respects.  Even  history  acknowledges  that  Queen  Eliza 
beth  herself  used  profane  language."  She  faltered  and  coughed 
a  little  apologetic  cough  as  she  picked  up  her  stitch  again. 

"  I  bet  Ann 's  never  seen  inside  Shakspere,"  said  Tembarom. 
Before  reading  aloud  in  the  future  he  gave  some  previous 
personal  attention  to  the  poem  or  subject  decided  upon.  It 
may  be  at  once  frankly  admitted  that  when  he  read  aloud  it 
was  more  for  Miss  Alicia's  delectation  than  for  his  own.  He 
saw  how  much  she  enjoyed  the  situation. 

His  effect  of  frankness  and  constant  boyish  talk  was  so  in 
separable  from  her  idea  of  him  that  she  found  it  a  puzzling 
thing  to  realize  that  she  gradually  began  to  feel  aware  of  a 
certain  remote  reserve  in  him,  or  what  might  perhaps  be  bet 
ter  described  as  a  habit  of  silence  upon  certain  subjects.  She 
felt  it  marked  in  the  case  of  Strangeways.  She  surmised  that 
he  saw  Strangeways  often  and  spent  a  good  deal  of  time  with 
him,  but  he  spoke  of  him  rarely,  and  she  never  knew  exactly 
what  hours  were  given  to  him.  Sometimes  she  imagined  he 
found  him  a  greater  responsibility  than  he  had  expected.  Sev 
eral  times  when  she  believed  that  he  had  spent  part  of  a  morn 
ing  or  afternoon  in  his  room,  he  was  more  silent  than  usual 
and  looked  puzzled  and  thoughtful.  She  observed,  as  Mr.  Pal- 
ford  had,  that  the  picture-gallery,  with  its  portraits  of  his  an 
cestors,  had  an  attraction.  A  certain  rainy  day  he  asked  her 


242  T.   TEMBAROM 

to  go  with  him  and  look  them  over.  It  was  inevitable  that  she 
should  soon  wander  to  the  portrait  of  Miles  Hugo  and  remain 
standing  before  it.  Tembarom  followed,  and  stood  by  her  side 
in  silence  until  her  sadness  broke  its  bounds  with  a  pathetic 
sigh. 

"  Was  he  very  like  him  ?  "  he  asked. 

She  made  an  unconscious,  startled  movement.  For  the  mo 
ment  she  had  forgotten  his  presence,  and  she  had  not  really 
expected  him  to  remember. 

"  I  mean  Jem,"  he  answered  her  surprised  look.  "  How  was 
he  like  him?  Was  there — "  he  hesitated  and  looked  really 
interested  — "  was  he  like  him  in  any  particular  thing  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  turning  to  the  portrait  of  Miles  Hugo  again. 
"  They  both  had  those  handsome,  drooping  eyes,  with  the  lashes 
coming  together  at  the  corners.  There  is  something  very 
fascinating  about  them,  is  n't  there  ?  I  used  to  notice  it  so 
much  in  dear  little  Jem.  You  see  how  marked  they  are  in 
Miles  Hugo." 

"  Yes,"  Tembarom  answered.  "  A  fellow  who  looked  that 
way  at  a  girl  when  he  made  love  to  her  would  get  a  strangle- 
holt.  She  wouldn't  forget  him  soon." 

"  It  strikes  you  in  that  way,  too  ?  "  said  Miss  Alicia,  shyly. 
"  I  used  to  wonder  if  it  was  —  not  quite  nice  of  me  to  think  of 
it.  But  it  did  seem  that  if  any  one  did  look  at  one  like  that  — " 
Maidenly  shyness  overcame  her.  "  Poor  Lady  Joan ! "  she 
sighed. 

"  There  's  a  sort  of  cleft  in  his  chin,  though  it  Js  a  good, 
square  chin,"  he  suggested.  "  And  that  smile  of  his  —  Were 
Jem's  —  ?  " 

"Yes,  they  were.  The  likeness  was  quite  odd  sometimes  — 
quite." 

"Those  are  things  that  wouldn't  be  likely  to  ch'ange  much 
when  he  grew  up,"  Tembarom  said,  drawing  a  little  closer  to 
the  picture.  "  Poor  Jem !  He  was  up  against  it  hard  and 
plenty.  He  had  it  hardest.  This  chap  only  died." 

There  was  no  mistaking  his  sympathy.  He  asked  so  many 
questions  that  they  sat  down  and  talked  instead  of  going 
through  the  gallery.  He  was  interested  in  the  detail  of  all 


T.    TEMBAROM  243 

that  had  occurred  after  the  ghastly  moment  when  Jem  had  risen 
from  the  card-table  and  stood  looking  around,  like  some  baited 
dying  animal,  at  the  circle  of  cruel  faces  drawing  in  about 
him.  How  soon  had  he  left  London?  Where  had  he  gone 
first?  How  had  he  been  killed?  He  had  been  buried  with 
others  beneath  a  fall  of  earth  and  stones.  Having  heard  this 
much,  Tembarom  saw  he  could  not  ask  more  questions.  Miss 
Alicia  became  pale,  and  her  hands  trembled.  She  could  not 
bear  to  discuss  details  so  harrowing. 

".Say,  I  oughtn't  to  let  you  talk  about  that/'  he  broke  out, 
and  he  patted  her  hand  and  made  her  get  up  and  finish  their 
walk  about  the  gallery.  He  held  her  elbow  in  his  own  odd, 
nice  way  as  he  guided  her,  and  the  things  he  said,  and  the 
things  he  pretended  to  think  or  not  to  understand,  were  so 
amusing  that  in  a  short  time  he  had  made  her  laugh.  She 
knew  him  well  enough  by  this  time  to  be  aware  that  he 
was  intentionally  obliging  her  to  forget  what  it  only  did  her 
harm  to  remember.  That  was  his  practical  way  of  looking 
at  it. 

"  Getting  a  grouch  on  or  being  sorry  for  what  you  can't  help 
cuts  no  ice,"  he  sometimes  said.  "  When  it  does,  me  for  get 
ting  up  at  daybreak  and  keeping  at  it!  But  it  does  n't,  you  bet 
your  life  on  that." 

She  could  see  that  he  had  really  wanted  to  hear  about  Jem, 
but  he  knew  it  was  bad  for  her  to  recall  things,  and  he  would 
not  allow  her  to  dwell  on  them,  just  as  she  knew  he  would  not 
allow  himself  to  dwell  on  little  Miss  Hutchinson,  remotely  placed 
among  the  joys  of  his  beloved  New  York. 

Two  other  incidents  besides  the  visit  to  Miles  Hugo  after 
ward  marked  that  day  when  Miss  Alicia  looked  back  on  it. 
The  first  was  his  unfolding  to  her  his  plans  for  the  house- 
party,  which  was  characteristic  of  his  habit  of  thinking  things 
over  and  deciding  them  before  he  talked  about  them. 

"  If  I  'm  going  to  try  the  thing  out,  as  Ann  says  I  must," 
he  began  when  they  had  gone  back  to  the  library  after  lunch, 
"  I  've  got  to  get  going.  I  'm  not  seeing  any  of  those  Pictorial 
girls,  and  I  guess  I  've  got  to  see  some." 

"You  will  be  invited  to  dine  at  places,"  said  Miss  Alicia,— 


244  T.    TEMBAROM 

"presently/*  she  added  bravely,  in  fact,  with  an  air  of  greater 
conviction  than  she  felt. 

"  If  it 's  not  the  law  that  they  've  got  to  invite  me  or  go  to 
jail,"  said  Tembarom,  "  I  don't  blame  'em  for  not  doing  it  if 
they  're  not  stuck  on  me.  And  they  're  not ;  and  it 's  natural. 
But  I  've  got  to  get  in  my  fine  work,  or  my  year  '11  be  over 
before  I  've  '  found  out  for  myself,'  as  Ann  called  it.  There  's 
where  I  'm  at,  Miss  Alicia  —  and  I  've  been  thinking  of  Lady 
Joan  and  her  mother.  You  said  you  thought  they'd  come 
and  stay  here  if  they  were  properly  asked." 

"I  think  they  would,"  answered  Miss  Alicia  with  her  usual 
delicacy.  "I  thought  I  gathered  from  Lady  Mallowe  that,  as 
she  was  to  be  in  the  neighborhood,  she  would  like  to  see  you 
and  Temple  Barholm,  which  she  greatly  admires." 

"  If  you  '11  tell  me  what  to  do,  I  '11  get  her  here  to  stay 
awhile,"  he  said,  "  and  Lady  Joan  with  her.  You  'd  have  to 
show  me  how  to  write  to  ask  them ;  but  perhaps  you  'd  write 
yourself." 

"  They  will  be  at  Asshawe  Holt  next  week,"  said  Miss  Alicia, 
"  and  we  could  go  and  call  on  them  together.  We  might  write 
to  them  in  London  before  they  leave." 

"  We  '11  do  it,"  answered  Tembarom.  His  manner  was  that 
of  a  practical  young  man  attacking  matter-of-fact  detail. 
"  From  what  I  hear,  Lady  Joan  would  satisfy  even  Ann.  They 
say  she  's  the  best-looker  on  the  slate.  If  I  see  her  every  day 
I  shall  have  seen  the  blue-ribbon  winner.  Then  if  she 's  here, 
perhaps  others  of  her  sort  '11  come,  too;  and  they  '11  have  to 
see  me  whether  they  like  it  or  not  —  and  I  shall  see  them. 
Good  Lord ! "  he  added  seriously,  "  I  'd  let  'em  swarm  all  over 
me  and  bite  me  all  summer  if  it  would  fix  Ann." 

He  stood  up,  with  his  hands  thrust  deep  in  his  pockets, 
and  looked  down  at  the  floor. 

"  I  wish  she  knew  T.  T.  like  T.  T.  knows  himself,"  he  said. 
It  was  quite  wistful. 

It  was  so  wistful  and  so  boyish  that  Miss  Alicia  was  thrilled  as 
he  often  thrilled  her. 

"She  ought  to  be  a  very  happy  girl,"  she  exclaimed. 

"  She 's  going  to  be,"  he  answered,  "  sure  as  you  're  alive. 


T.    TEMBAROM  245 

But  whatever  she  does,  is  right,  and  this  is  as  right  as  every 
thing  else.  So  it  just  goes/' 

They  wrote  their  letters  at  once,  and  sent  them  off  by  the 
afternoon  post.  The  letter  Miss  Alicia  composed,  and  which 
Tembarom  copied,  he  read  and  reread,  with  visions  of  Jim 
Bowles  and  Julius  looking  over  his  shoulder.  If  they  picked  it 
up  on  Broadway,  with  his  name  signed  to  it,  and  read  it,  they  'd 
throw  a  fit  over  it,  laughing.  But  he  supposed  she  knew  what 
you  ought  to  write. 

It  had  not,  indeed,  the  masculine  touch.  When  Lady  Mal- 
lowe  read  it,  she  laughed  several  times.  She  knew  quite  well 
that  he  had  not  known  what  to  say,  and,  allowing  Miss  Alicia 
to  instruct  him,  had  followed  her  instructions  to  the  letter. 
But  she  did  not  show  the  letter  to  Joan,  who  was  difficult  enough 
to  manage  without  being  given  such  material  to  comment  upon. 

The  letters  had  just  been  sent  to  the  post  when  a  visitor 
was  announced  —  Captain  Palliser.  Tembarom  remembered  the 
name,  .and  recalled  also  certain  points  connected  with  him. 
He  was  the  one  who  was  a  promoter  of  schemes  — "  One  of 
the  smooth,  clever  ones  that  get  up  companies,"  Little  Ann 
had  said. 

That  in  a  well-bred  and  not  too  pronounced  way  he  looked 
smooth  and  clever  might  be  admitted.  His  effect  was  that 
of  height,  finished  slenderness  of  build,  and  extremely  well-cut 
garments.  He  was  no  longer  young,  and  he  had  smooth,  thin 
hair  and  a  languidly  observant  gray  eye. 

"  I  have  been  staying  at  Detchworth  Grange,"  he  explained 
when  he  had  shaken  hands  with  the  new  Temple  Barholm  and 
Miss  Alicia.  "  It  gave  me  an  excellent  opportunity  to  come 
and  pay  my  respects/' 

There  was  a  hint  of  uncertainty  in  the  observant  gray  eye. 
The  fact  was  that  he  realized  in  the  space  of  five  minutes  that 
he  knew  his  ground  even  less  than  he  had  supposed  he  did. 
He  had  not  spent  his  week  at  Detchworth  Grange  without 
making  many  quiet  investigations,  but  he  had  found  out  noth 
ing  whatever.  The  new  man  was  an  ignoramus,  but  no  one 
had  yet  seemed  to  think  him  exactly  a  fool.  He  was  not  ex 
cited  by  the  new  grandeurs  of  his  position  and  he  was  not 


246  T.    TEMBAROM 

ashamed  of  himself.  Captain  Palliser  wondered  if  he  was 
perhaps  sharp  —  one  of  those  Xew  Yorkers  shrewd  even  to  light- 
fingeredness  in  clever  scheming.  Stories  of  a  newly  created 
method  of  business  dealing  involving  an  air  of  candor  and 
almost  primitive  good  nature  —  an  American  method  —  had 
attracted  Captain  Palliser's  attention  for  some  time.  A  cer 
tain  Yankee  rawness  of  manner  played  a  part  as  a  factor,  a 
crudity  which  would  throw  a  man  off  guard  if  he  did  not  rec 
ognize  it.  The  person  who  employed  the  method  was  of 
philosophical  non-combativeness.  The  New  York  phrase  was 
that  "He  jollied  a  man  along/'  Immense  schemes  had  been 
carried  through  in  that  way.  Men  in  London,  in  England, 
were  not  sufficiently  light  of  touch  in  their  jocularity.  He 
wondered  if  perhaps  this  young  fellow,  with  his  ready  laugh 
and  rattier  loose-jointed,  casual  way  of  carrying  himself,  was 
of  this  dangerous  new  school. 

What,  however,  could  he  scheme  for,  being  the  owner  of 
Temple  Barholm's  money?  It  may  be  mentioned  at  once  that 
Captain  Palliser's  past  had  been  such  as  had  fixed  him  in  the 
belief  that  every  one  was  scheming  for  something.  People  with 
money  wanted  more  or  were  privately  arranging  schemes  to 
prevent  other  schemers  from  getting  any  shade  the  better  of 
them.  Debutantes  with  shy  eyes  and  slim  figures  had  their 
little  plans  to  engineer  delicately.  Sometimes  they  were  larger 
plans  than  the  uninitiated  would  have  suspected  as  existing  in 
the  brains  of  creatures  in  their  'teens,  sometimes  they  were  mere 
fantastic  little  ideas  connected  with  dashing  young  men  or 
innocent  dances  which  must  be  secured  or  lovely  young  rivals 
who  must  be  evaded.  Young  men  had  also  deft  things  to  do  — 
people  to  see  or  not  to  see,  reasons  for  themselves  being  seen 
or  avoiding  observation.  As  years  increased,  reasons  for 
schemes  became  more  numerous  and  amazingly  more  varied. 
Women  with  daughters,  with  sons,  with  husbands,  found  in 
each  relationship  a  necessity  for  active,  if  quiet,  maneuvering. 
Women  like  Lady  Mallowe  —  good  heaven!  by  what  schemes 
did  not  that  woman  live  and  have  her  being  —  and  her  daugh 
ter's —  from  day  to  day!  Without  money,  without  a  friend 
who  was  an  atom  more  to  be  relied  on  than  she  would  have 


T.    TEMBAROM  247 

been  herself  if  an  acquaintance  had  needed  her  aid,  her  out 
wardly  well-to-do  and  fashionable  existence  was  a  hand-to- 
hand  fight.  No  wonder  she  had  turned  a  still  rather  brilliant 
eye  upon  Sir  Moses  Monaldini,  the  great  Israelite  financier. 
All  of  these  types  passed  rapidly  before  his  mental  vision  as 
he  talked  to  the  American  Temple  Barholm.  What  could  he 
want,  by  chance?  He  must  want  something,  and  it  would  be 
discreet  to  find  out  what  it  chanced  to  be. 

If  it  was  social  success,  he  would  be  better  off  in  London, 
where  in  these  days  you  could  get  a  good  run  for  your  money 
and  could  swing  yourself  up  from  one  rung  of  the  ladder  to 
another  if  you  paid  some  one  to  show  you  how.  He  himself 
could  show  him  how.  A  youngster  who  had  lived  the  beastly 
hard  life  he  had  lived  would  be  likely  to  find  exhilaration  in 
many  things  not  difficult  to  purchase.  It  was  an  odd  thing, 
by  the  way,  the  fancy  he  had  taken  to  the  little  early-Victorian 
spinster.  It  was  not  quite  natural.  It  perhaps  denoted 
tendencies  —  or  lack  of  tendencies  —  it  would  also  be  well 
to  consider.  Palliser  was  a  sufficiently  finished  product  him 
self  to  be  struck  greatly  by  the  artistic  perfection  of  Miss  Alicia, 
and  to  wonder  how  much  the  new  man  understood  it. 

He  did  not  talk  to  him  about  schemes.  He  talked  to  him 
of  New  York,  which  he  had  never  seen  and  hoped  sometime 
shortly  to  visit.  The  information  he  gained  was  not  of  the 
kind  he  most  desired,  but  it  edified  him.  Tembarom's  knowl 
edge  of  high  finance  was  a  street  lad's  knowledge  of  it,  and  he 
himself  knew  its  limitations  and  probable  unreliability.  Such 
of  his  facts  as  rested  upon  the  foundation  of  experience  did 
not  include  multimillionaires  and  their  resources. 

Captain  Palliser  passed  lightly  to  Temple  Barholm  and  its 
neighborhood.  He  knew  places  and  names,  and  had  been  to 
Detchworth  more  than  once.  He  had  never  visited  Temple 
Barholm,  and  his  interest  suggested  that  he  would  like  to  walk 
through  the  gardens.  Tembarom  took  him  out,  and  they 
strolled  about  for  some  time.  Even  an  alert  observer  would 
not  have  suspected  the  fact  that  as  they  strolled,  Tembarom 
slouching  a  trifle  and  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets.  Captain 
Palliser  bearing  himself  with  languid  distinction,  each  man 


248  T.    TEMBAROM 

was  summing  up  the  other  and  considering  seriously  how  far 
and  in  what  manner  he  could  be  counted  as  an  asset. 

"You  haven't  been  to  Detchworth  yet?"  Palliser  inquired. 

"No,  not  yet,"  answered  Tembarom.  The  Granthams  were 
of  those  who  had  not  yet  called. 

"  It  '&  an  agreeable  house.  The  Granthams  are  agreeable 
people." 

"Are  there  any  young  people  in  the  family?"  Tembarom 
asked. 

"  Young  pople  ?  Male  or  female  ?  "  Palliser  smilingly  put  it. 
Suddenly  it  occurred  to  him  that  this  might  give  him  a  sort 
of  lead. 

"  Girls,"  said  Tembarom,  crudely  — "  just  plain  girls." 

Palliser  laughed.     Here  it  was,  perhaps. 

"  They  are  not  exactly  '  plain '  girls,  though  they  are  not 
beauties.  There  are  four  Misses  Grantham.  Lucy  is  the 
prettiest.  Amabel  is  quite  tremendous  at  tennis." 

"  Are  they  ladies  ?  "  inquired  Tembarom. 

Captain  'Palliser  turned  and  involuntarily  stared  at  him. 
What  was  the  fellow  getting  at? 

"  I  Jm  afraid  I  don't  quite  understand,"  he  said. 

The  new  Temple  Barholm  looked  quite  serious.  He  did  not, 
amazing  to  relate,  look  like  a  fool  even  when  he  gave  forth 
his  extraordinary  question.  It  was  his  almost  business-like 
seriousness  which  saved  him. 

"  I  mean,  do  you  call  them  Lady  Lucy  and  Lady  Amabel  ?  " 
he  answered. 

If  he  had  been  younger,  less  hardened,  or  less  finished,  Cap 
tain  Palliser  would  have  laughed  outright.  But  he  answered 
without  self-revelation. 

"  Oh,  I  see.  You  were  asking  whether  the  family  is  a  titled 
one.  No ;  it  is  a  good  old  name,  quite  old,  in  fact,  but  no  title 
goes  with  the  estate." 

"Who  are  the  titled  people  about  here?"  Tembarom  asked, 
quite  unabashed. 

"  The  Earl  of  Pevensy  at  Pevensy  Park,  the  Duke  of  Stone 
at  Stone  Hover,  Lord  Hambrough  at  Doone.  Doone  is  in  the 
next  county,  just  over  the  border." 


T.  TEMBAEOM  249 

"  Have  they  all  got  daughters  ?  " 

Captain  Palliser  found  it  expedient  to  clear  his  throat  be 
fore  speaking. 

"  Lord  Pevensy  has  daughters,  so  has  the  duke.  Lord  Ham- 
brough  has  three  sons/' 

"  How  many  daughters  are  there  —  in  a  bunch  ? "  Mr. 
Temple  Barholm  suggested  liberally. 

There  Captain  Palliser  felt  it  safe  to  allow  himself  to  smile, 
as  though  taking  it  with  a  sense  of  humor. 

"  *  In  a  bunch '  is  an  awfully  good  way  of  putting  it,"  he  said. 
"  It  happens  to  apply  perhaps  rather  unfortunately  well ;  both 
families  are  much  poorer  than  they  should  be,  and  daughters 
must  be  provided  for.  Each  has  four.  '  In  a  bunch '  there  are 
eight:  Lady  Alice,  Lady  Edith,  Lady  Ethel,  and  Lady  Celia  at 
Stone  Hover;  Lady  Beatrice,  Lady  Gwynedd,  Lady  Honora, 
and  Lady  Gwendolen  at  Pevensy  Park.  And  not  a  fortune 
among  them,  poor  girls !  " 

"  It 's  not  the  money  that  matters  so  much,"  said  the  astound 
ing  foreigner,  "  it 's  the  titles." 

Captain  Palliser  stopped  short  in  the  garden  path  for  a 
moment.  He  could  scarcely  believe  his  ears.  The  crude  gro- 
tesqueness  of  it  so  far  got  the  better  of  him  that  if  he  had. 
not  coughed  he  would  have  betrayed  himself. 

"  I  've  had  a  confounded  cold  lately,"  he  said.  "  Excuse 
me;  I  must  get  it  over." 

He  turned  a  little  aside  and  coughed  energetically. 

After  watching  him  a  few  seconds  Tembarom  slipped  two 
fingers  into  his  waistcoat  pocket  and  produced  a  small  tube  of 
tablets. 

"  Take  two  of  these,"  he  said  as  soon  as  the  cough  stopped. 
"  I  always  carry  it  about  with  me.  It 's  a  New  York  thing 
called  '  G.  Destroyer.'  G  stands  for  grippe." 

Palliser  took  it. 

"  Thanks.  With  water  ?  No  ?  Just  dissolve  in  the  mouth. 
Thanks  awfully."  And  he  took  two,  with  tears  still  standing 
in  his  eyes. 

"  Don't  taste  bad,  do  they  ?  "  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  remarked 
encouragingly. 


250  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  Not  at  all.  I  think  I  shall  be  all  right  now.  I  just  needed 
the  relief.  I  have  been  trying  to  restrain  it." 

"That's  a  mistake,"  said  Tembarom.  They  strolled  on  a 
pace  or  so,  and  he  began  again,  as  though  he  did  not  mean  to 
let  the  subject  drop.  "  It 's  the  titles,"  he  said,  "  and  the  kind. 
How  many  of  them  are  good-lookers  ?  " 

Palliser  reflected  a  moment,  as  though  making  mental  choice. 

"  Lady  Alice  and  Lady  Celia  are  rather  plain,"  he  said,  "  and 
both  of  them  are  invalidish.  Lady  Ethel  is  tall  and  has  hand 
some  eyes,  but  Lady  Edith  is  really  the  beauty  of  the  family. 
She  rides  and  dances  well  and  has  a  charming  color." 

"  And  the  other  ones,"  Tembaron  suggested  as  he  paused  — 
"Lady  Beatrice  and  Lady  Gwynedd  and  Lady  Honora  and 
Lady  Gwendolen." 

"  You  remember  their  names  well,"  Palliser  remarked  with  a 
half-laugh. 

"  Oh,  I  shall  remember  them  all  right,"  Tembarom  answered. 
"  I  earned  twenty-five  per  in  New  York  by  getting  names  down 
fine." 

"  The  Talchesters  are  really  all  rather  taking.  Talchester  is 
Lord  Pevensy's  family  name,"  Palliser  explained.  "  They  are 
girls  who  have  pretty  little  noses  and  bright  complexions  and 
eyes.  Lady  Gwynedd  and  Lady  Honora  both  have  quite  fas 
cinating  dimples." 

"  Dimples !  "  exclaimed  his  companion.     "  Good  business." 

"  Do  you  like  dimples  particularly  ?  "  Palliser  inquired  with 
an  impartial  air. 

"  I  'd  always  make  a  bee-line  for  a  dimple,"  replied  Mr. 
Temple  Barholm.  "  Clear  the  way  when  I  start." 

This  was  New  York  phrasing,  and  was  plainly  humorous ; 
but  there  was  something  more  than  humor  in  his  eye  and  smile 
—  something  hinting  distantly  at  recollection. 

"  You  '11  find  them  at  Pevensy  Park,"  said  Palliser. 

"What  about  Lady  Joan  Fayre?"  was  the  next  inquiry. 

Palliser's  side  glance  at  him  was  observant  indeed.  He  asked 
himself  how  much  the  man  could  know.  Taking  the  past  into 
consideration,  Lady  Joan  might  turn  out  to  be  a  subject  requir 
ing  delicate  handling.  It  was  not  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world 


T.    TEMBAROM  251 

to  talk  at  all  freely  to  a  person  with  whom  one  desired  to  keep 
on  good  terms,  about  a  young  woman  supposed  still. to  cherish 
a  tragic  passion  for  the  dead  man  who  ought  to  stand  at  the 
present  moment  in  the  person's,  figuratively  speaking,  ex 
tremely  ill-fitting  shoes. 

"  Lady  Joan  has  been  from  her  first  season  an  undeniable 
beauty,"  he  replied. 

"  She  and  the  old  lady  are  going  to  stay  at  a  place  called 
Asshawe  Holt.  I  think  they  're  going  next  week,"  Tembarom 
said. 

"  The  old  lady  ?  "  repeated  Captain  Palliser. 

"  I  mean  her  mother.  The  one  that 's  the  Countess  of 
Mallowe." 

"  Have  you  met  Lady  Mallowe  ? "  Palliser  inquired  with 
a  not  wholly  repressed  smile.  A  vision  of  Lady  Mallowe  over 
hearing  their  conversation  arose  before  him. 

"  No,  I  have  n't.     What  'a  she  like  ?  " 

"  She  is  not  the  early-  or  mid-Victorian  old  lady,"  was  Pal- 
liser's  reply.  "  She  wears  Gainsborough  hats,  and  looks  a  quite 
possible  eight  and  thirty.  She  is  a  handsome  person  her 
self." 

He  was  not  aware  that  the  term  "  old  lady "  was,  among 
Americans  of  the  class  of  Mrs.  Bowse's  boarders,  a  sort  of  gene 
ric  term  signifying  almost  anything  maternal  which  had  passed 
thirty. 

Tembarom  proceeded. 

"  After  they  get  through  at  the  Asshawe  Holt  place,  I  've 
asked  them  to  come  here." 

"  Indeed,"  said  Palliser,  with  an  inward  start.  The  man 
evidently  did  not  know  what  other  people  did.  After  all,  why 
should  he?  He  had  been  selling  something  or  other  in  the 
streets  of  New  York  when  the  thing  happened,  and  he  knew 
nothing  of  London. 

"  The  countess  called  on  Miss  Alicia  when  we  were  in  Lon 
don,"  he  heard  next.  "  She  said  we  were  relations." 

"You  are  —  as  we  are.  The  connection  is  rather  distant, 
but  it  is  near  enough  to  form  a  sort  of  link." 

"  I  've    wanted    to    see    Lady   Joan,"    explained    Tembarom. 


252  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  From  what  I  've  heard;  I  should  say  she  was  one  of  the  '  Lady's 
Pictorial '  kind." 

"  I  am  afraid  — "  Palliser's  voice  was  slightly  unsteady  for  the 
moment  — "  I  have  not  studied  the  type  sufficiently  to  know. 
The  '  Pictorial '  is  so  exclusively  a  women's  periodical/' 

His  companion  laughed. 

"  Well,  I  ?ve  only  looked  through  it  once  myself  just  to  find 
out.  Some  way  I  always  think  of  Lady  Joan  as  if  she  was  like 
one  of  those  Beaut's  from  Beautsville,  with  trains  as  long  as 
parlor-cars  and  feathers  in  their  heads  —  dressed  to  go  to  see 
the  queen.  I  guess  she 's  been  presented  at  court,"  he  added. 

"  Yes,  she  has  been  presented." 

"  Do  they  let  'em  go  more  than  once  ?  "  he  asked  with  casual 
curiosity. 

"  Confound  this  cough !  "  exclaimed  Captain  Palliser,  and  he 
broke  forth  again. 

"Take  another  G,"  said  Tembarom,  producing  his  tube. 
"  Say,  just  take  the  bottle  and  keep  it  in  your  pocket." 

When  the  brief  paroxysm  was  over  and  they  moved  on  again, 
Palliser  was  looking  an  odd  thing  or  so  in  the  face.  "  I  always 
think  of  Lady  Joan  "  was  one  of  them.  "  Always  "  seemed  to 
go  rather  far.  How  often  and  why  had  he  "  always  thought  "  ? 
The  fellow  was  incredible.  Did  his  sharp,  boyish  face  and  his 
slouch  conceal  a  colossal,  vulgar,  young  ambition?  There  was 
not  much  concealment  about  it,  Heaven  knew.  And  as  he  so 
evidently  was  not  aware  of  the  facts,  how  would  they  affect  him 
when  he  discovered  them?  And  though  Lady  Mallowe  was  a 
woman  not  in  the  least  distressed  or  hampered  by  shades  of  deli 
cacy  and  scruple,  she  surely  was  astute  enough  to  realize  that 
.even  this  bounder's  dullness  might  be  awakened  to  realize  that 
there  was  more  than  a  touch  of  obvious  indecency  in  bringing 
the  girl  to  the  house  of  the  man  she  had  tragically  loved,  and 
manceuvering  to  work  her  into  it  as  the  wife  of  the  man  who, 
monstrously  unfit  as  he  was,  had  taken  his  place.  Captain 
Palliser  knew  well  that  the  pressing  of  the  relationship  had 
meant  only  one  thing.  And  how,  in  the  name  of  the  Furies! 
had  she  dragged  Lady  Joan  into  the  scheme  with  her? 

It  was  as  unbelievable  as  was  the  new  Temple  Barholm  him- 


T.    TEMBAROM  253 

self.  And  how  unconcerned  the  fellow  looked!  Perhaps  the 
man  he  had  supplanted  was  no  more  to  him  than  a  scarcely 
remembered  name,  if  he  was  as  much  as  that.  Then  Temba- 
rom,  pacing  slowly  by  his  side,  hands  in  pockets,  eyes  on  the 
walk,  spoke: 

"  Did  you  ever  see  Jem  Temple  Barholm  ? "  he  asked. 

It  was  like  a  thunderbolt.  He  said  it  as  though  he  were 
merely  carrying  his  previous  remarks  on  to  their  natural  con 
clusion;  but  Palliser  felt  himself  so  suddenly  unadjusted,  so 
to  speak,  that  he  palpably  hesitated. 

"  Did   you  ? "    his   companion   repeated. 

"  I  knew  him  well,"  was  the  answer  made  as  soon  as  read 
justment  was  possible. 

"Remember  just  how  he  looked?" 

"  Perfectly.  He  was  a  striking  fellow.  Women  always  said 
he  had  fascinating  eyes." 

"  Sort  of  slant  downward  on  the  outside  corners  — •  and  black 
eyelashes  sorter  sweeping  together  ?  " 

Palliser  turned  with  a  movement  of  surprise. 

"  How  did  you  know  ?     It  was  just  that  odd  sort  of  thing." 

"  Miss  Alicia  told  me.  And  there  's  a  picture  in  the  gallery 
that's  like  him." 

Captain  Palliser  felt  as  embarrassed  as  Miss  Alicia  had  felt, 
but  it  was  for  a  different  reason.  She  had  felt  awkward  be 
cause  she  had  feared  she  had  touched  on  a  delicate  subject. 
Palliser  was  embarrassed  because  he  was  entirely  thrown  out 
of  all  his  calculations.  He  felt  for  the  moment  that  there 
was  no  calculating  at  all,  no  security  in  preparing  paths. 
You  never  know  where  they  would  lead.  Here  had  he  been 
actually  alarmed  in  secret!  And  the  oaf  stood  before  him 
undisturbedly  opening  up  the  subject  himself. 

"  For  a  fellow  like  that  to  lose  a  girl  as  he  lost  Lady  Joan 
was  pretty  tough,"  the  oaf  said.  "  By  gee !  it  was  tough !  " 

He  knew  it  all  —  the  whole  thing,  scandal,  tragically  broken 
marriage,  everything.  And  knowing  it,  he  was  laying  his 
Yankee  plans  for  getting  the  girl  to  Temple  Barholm  to  look 
her  over.  It  was  of  a  grossness  one  sometimes  heard  of  in 
men  of  his  kind,  and  yet  it  seemed  in  its  casualness  to  out- 


254  T.    TEMBAKOM 

leap  any  little  scheme  of  the  sort  he  had  so  far  looked  on  at. 

"  Lady  Joan  felt  it  immensely,"  he  said. 

A  footman  was  to  be  seen  moving  toward  them,  evidently 
bearing  a  message.  Tea  was  served  in  the  drawing-room,  and 
he  had  come  to  announce  the  fact. 

They  went  back  to  the  house,  and  Miss  Alicia  filled  cups 
for  them  and  presided  over  the  splendid  tray  with  a  persuasive 
suggestion  in  the  matter  of  hot  or  cold  things  which  made  it 
easy  to  lead  up  to  any  subject.  She  was  the  best  of  unobtrusive 
hostesses. 

Palliser  talked  of  his  visit  at  Detchworth,  which  had  been 
shortened  because  he  had  gone  to  "  fit  in  "  and  remain  until  a 
large  but  uncertain  party  turned  up.  It  had  turned  up  earlier 
than  had  been  anticipated,  and  of  course  he  could  only  deli 
cately  slip  away. 

"  I  am  sorry  it  has  happened,  however,"  he  said,  "  not  only 
because  one  does  not  wish  to  leave  Detchworth,  but  be 
cause  I  shall  miss  Lady  Mallowe  and  Lady  Joan,  who  are 
to  be  at  Asshawe  Holt  next  week.  I  particularly  wanted  to 
see  them." 

Miss  Alicia  glanced  at  Tembarom  to  see  what  he  would  do. 
He  spoke  before  he  could  catch  her  glance. 

"  Say,"  he  suggested,  "  why  don't  you  bring  your  grip  over 
here  and  stay?  I  wish  you  would." 

"A  grip  means  a  Gladstone  bag,"  Miss  Alicia  murmured 
in  a  rapid  undertone. 

Palliser  replied  with  appreciative  courtesy.  Things  were 
going  extremely  well. 

"  That 's  awfully  kind  of  you,"  he  answered.  "  I  should  like 
it  tremendously.  Nothing  better.  You  are  giving  me  a  de 
lightful  opportunity.  Thank  you,  thank  you.  If  I  may  turn 
up  on  Thursday  I  shall  be  delighted." 

There  was  satisfaction  in  this  at  least  in  the  observant  gray 
eye  when  he  went  away. 


CHAPTER  XX 


INNER  at  Detchworth  Grange  was  most 
amusing  that  evening.  One  of  the  chief 
reasons  —  in  fact,  it  would  not  be  too 
venturesome  to  say  the  chief  reason  —  for 
Captain  Palliser's  frequent  presence  in 
very  good  country  houses  was  that  he  had 
a  way  of  making  things  amusing.  His 
relation  of  anecdotes,  of  people  and  things, 
was  distinguished  by  a  manner  which 
subtly  declined  to  range  itself  on  the  side 
of  vulgar  gossip.  Quietly  and  with  a  fine 
casualness  he  conveyed  the  whole  picture 
of  the  new  order  at  Temple  Barholm. 
He  did  it  with  wonderfully  light  touches,  and  yet  the  whole  thing 
was  to  be  seen  —  the  little  old  maid  in  her  exquisite  clothes, 
her  unmistakable  stamp  of  timid  good  breeding,  her  protect 
ing  adoration  combined  with  bewilderment;  the  long,  lean,  not 
altogether  ill-looking  New  York  bounder,  with  his  slight  slouch, 
his  dangerously  unsophisticated-looking  face,  and  his  American 
jocularity  of  slang  phrase. 

"  He 's  of  a  class  I  know  nothing  about.  I  own  he  puzzled 
me  a  trifle  at  first,"  Palliser  said  with  his  cool  smile.  "  I  'm 
not  sure  that  I  've  *  got  on  to  him '  altogether  yet.  That 's  an 
expressive  New  York  phrase  of  his  own.  But  when  we 
were  strolling  about  together,  he  made  revelations  apparently 
without  being  in  the  least  aware  that  they  were  revelations. 
He  was  unbelievable.  My  fear  was  that  he  would  not  go  on." 
"  But  he  did  go  on  ? "  asked  Amabel.  "  One  must  hear" 
something  of  the  revelations." 

Then  was  given  in  the  best  possible  form  the  little  drama 
of  the  talk  in  the  garden.  No  shade  of  Mr.  Temple  Bar- 
holm's  characteristics  was  lost.  Palliser  gave  occasionally  an 

255 


256  T.   TEMBAROM 

English  attempt  at  the  reproduction  of  his  nasal  twang,  but 
it  was  only  a  touch  and  not  sufficiently  persisted  in  to  become 
undignified. 

"I  can't  do  it"  he  said.  "None  of  us  can  really  do  it. 
When  English  actors  try  it  on  the  stage,  it  is  not  in  the  least 
the  real  thing.  They  only  drawl  through  their  noses,  and  it 
is  more  than  that." 

The  people  of  Detchworth  Grange  were  not  noisy  people, 
but  their  laughter  was  unrestrained  before  the  recital  was 
finished.  Nobody  had  gone  so  far  as  either  to  fear  or  to  hope 
for  anything  as  undiluted  in  its  nature  as  this  was. 

"  Then  he  won't  give  us  a  chance,  the  least  chance,"  cried 
Lucy  and  Amabel  almost  in  unison.  "We  are  out  of  the 
running." 

"You  won't  get  even  a  look  in  —  because  you  are  not 
*  ladies/"  said  their  brother. 

"Poor  Jem  Temple  Barholm!  What  a  different  thing  it 
would  have  been  if  we  had  had  him  for  a  neighbor ! "  Mr. 
Grantham  fretted. 

"We  should  have  had  Lady  Joan  Fayre  as  well,"  said  his 
wife. 

"  At  least  she 's  a  gentlewoman  as  well  as  a  '  lady,' "  Mr. 
Grantham  said.  "  She  would  not  have  become  so  bitter  if  that 
hideous  thing  had  not  occurred." 

They  wondered  if  the  new  man  knew  anything  about  Jem. 
Palliser  had  not  reached  that  part  of  his  revelation  when  the 
laughter  had  broken  into  it.  He  told  it  forthwith,  and  the 
laughter  was  overcome  by  a  sort  of  dismayed  disgust.  This 
did  not  accord  with  the  rumors  of  an  almost  "  nice "  good 
nature. 

"  There 's  a  vulgar  horridness  about  it,"  said  Lucy. 

"  What  price  Lady  Mallowe ! "  said  the  son.  "  I  '11  bet  a 
sovereign  she  began  it." 

".She  did,"  remarked  Palliser;  "but  I  think  one  may  leave 
Mr.  Temple  Barholm  safely  to  Lady  Joan."  Mr.  Grantham 
laughed  as  one  who  knew  something  of  Lady  Joan. 

"  There  's  an  Americanism  which  I  did  n't  learn  from  him," 
Palliser  added,  "  and  I  remembered  it  when  he  was  talking  her 


T.    TEMBAEOM  257 

over.  It's  this:  when  you  dispose  of  a  person  finally  and 
forever,  you  '  wipe  up  the  earth  with  him/  Lady  Joan  will 
'  wipe  up  the  earth '  with  your  new  neighbor." 

There  was  a  little  shout  of  laughter.  "  Wipe  up  the  earth  " 
was  entirely  new  to  everybody,  though  even  the  country  in 
England  was  at  this  time  by  no  means  wholly  ignorant  of 
American  slang. 

This  led  to  so  many  other  things  both  mirth-provoking  and 
serious,  even  sometimes  very  serious  indeed,  that  the  entire 
evening  at  Detchworth  was  filled  with  talk  of  Temple  Barholm. 
Very  naturally  the  talk  did  not  end  by  confining  itself  to  one 
household.  In  due  time  Captain  Palliser's  little  sketches  were 
known  in  divers  places,  and  it  became  a  habit  to  discuss  what 
had  happened,  and  what  might  possibly  happen  in  the  future. 
There  were  those  who  went  to  the  length  of  calling  on  the  new 
man  because  they  wanted  to  see  him  face  to  face.  People  heard 
new  things  every  few  days,  but  no  one  realized  that  it  was 
vaguely  through  Palliser  that  there  developed  a  general  idea 
that,  crude  and  self-revealing  as  he  was,  there  lurked  behind  the 
outward  candor  of  the  intruder  a  hint  of  over-sharpness  of 
the  American  kind.  There  seemed  no  necessity  for  him  to  lay 
schemes  beyond  those  he  had  betrayed  in  his  inquiries  about 
"  ladies,"  but  somehow  it  became  a  fixed  idea  that  he  was  capa 
ble  of  doing  shady  things  if  at  any  time  the  temptation  arose. 
That  was  really  what  his  boyish  casualness  meant.  That  in 
truth  was  Palliser's  final  secret  conclusion.  And  he  wanted  very 
much  to  find  out  why  exactly  little  old  Miss  Temple  Barholm 
had  been  taken  up.  If  the  man  wanted  introductions,  he  could 
have  contrived  to  pick  up  a  smart  and  enterprising  unpro 
fessional  chaperon  in  London  who  would  have  done  for  him 
what  Miss  Temple  Barholm  would  never  presume  to  attempt. 
And  yet  he  seemed  to  have  chosen  her  deliberately.  He 
had  set  her  literally  at  the  head  of  his  house.  And  Palliser, 
having  heard  a  vague  rumor  that  he  had  actually  settled  a 
decent  income  upon  her,  had  made  adroit  inquiries  and  found  it 
was  true. 

It  was.  To  arrange  the  matter  had  been  one  of  his  reasons 
for  going  to  see  Mr.  Palford  during  their  stay  in  London. 


258  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  I  wanted  to  fix  you  —  fix  you  safe,"  he  said  when  he  told 
Miss  Alicia  about  it.  "  I  guess  no  one  can  take  it  away  from 
you,  whatever  old  thing  happens." 

"  What  could  happen,  dear  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  ?  "  said  Miss 
Alicia  in  the  midst  of  tears  of  gratitude  and  tremulous  joy. 
"  Yon  are  so  young  and  strong  and  —  everything !  Don't  even 
speak  of  such  a  thing  in  jest.  What  could  happen  ?  " 

"  Anything  can  happen,"  he  answered,  "  just  anything.  Hap 
pening  's  the  one  thing  you  can't  bet  on.  If  I  was  betting, 
I  'd  put  my  money  on  the  thing  I  was  sure  could  n't  happen. 
Look  at  this  Temple  Barholm  song  and  dance!  Look  at  T. 
T.  as  he  was  half  strangling  in  the  blizzard  up  at  Harlem  and 
thanking  his  stars  little  Munsberg  did  n't  kick  him  out  of  his 
confectionery  store  less  than  a  year  ago !  So  long  as  I  'm  all 
right,  you're  all  right.  But  I  wanted  you  fixed,  anyhow." 

He  paused  and  looked  at  her  questioningly  for  a  moment. 
He  wanted  to  say  something  and  he  was  not  sure  he, ought. 
His  reverence  for  her  little  finenesses  and  reserves  increased  in 
stead  of  wearing  away.  He  was  always  finding  out  new  things 
about  her. 

"  Say,"  he  broke  forth  almost  impetuously  after  his  hesita 
tion,  "  I  wish  you  would  n't  call  me  Mr.  Temple  Barholm." 

"D-do  you?"  she  fluttered.  "But  what  could  I  call 
you?" 

"  Well,"  he  answered,  reddening  a  shade  or  so,  "  I  'd  give  a 
house  and  lot  if  you  could  just  call  me  Tern." 

"But  it  would  sound  so  unbecoming,  so  familiar,"  she  pro 
tested. 

"  Thai  's  just  what  I  'm  asking  for,"  he  said  — "  some  one 
to  be  familiar  with.  I  'm  the  familiar  kind.  That 's  what 's 
the  matter  with  me.  I  'd  be  familiar  with  Pearson,  but  he 
would  n't  let  me.  I  'd  frighten  him  half  to  death.  He  'd  think 
that  he  wasn't  doing  his  duty  and  earning  his  wages,  and 
that  somehow  he  'd  get  fired  some  day  without  a  character." 

He  drew  nearer  to  her  and  coaxed. 

"  Could  n't  you  do  it  ?  "  he  asked  almost  as  though  he  were 
asking  a  favor  of  a  girl.  "Just  Tern?  I  believe  that  would 
come  easier  to  you  than  T.  T.  I  get  fonder  and  fonder  of  you 


"  I  get  fonder  and  fonder  of  you  every  day,  Miss  Alicia  " 


T.    TEMBAROM  259 

every  day,  Miss  Alicia,  honest  Injun.     And  I  'd  be  go  grateful 
to  you  if  you  'd  just  be  that  unbecomingly  familiar/' 

He  looked  honestly  in  earnest;  and  if  he  grew  fonder  and 
fonder  of  her,  she  without  doubt  had,  in  the  face  of  every 
thing,  given  her  whole  heart  to  him. 

"Might  I  call  you  Temple  —  to  begin  with?"  she  asked. 
"  It  touches  me  so  to  think  of  your  asking  me.  I  will  begin  at 
once.  Thank  you  —  Temple,"  with  a  faint  gasp.  "  I  might 
try  the  other  a  little  later." 

It  was  only  a  few  evenings  later  that  he  told  her  about  the 
flats  in  Harlem.  He  had  sent  to  New  York  for  a  large  bundle 
of  newspapers,  and  when  he  opened  them  he  read  aloud  an  ad 
vertisement,  and  showed  her  a  picture  of  a  large  building  given 
up  entirely  to  "flats." 

He  had  realized  from  the  first  that  New  York  life  had  a 
singular  attraction  for  her.  The  unrelieved  dullness  of  her  life 
—  those  few  years  of  youth  in  which  she  had  stifled  vague 
longings  for  the  joys  experienced  by  other  girls;  the  years  of 
middle  age  spent  in  the  dreary  effort  to  be  "  submissive  to  the 
will  of  God,"  which,  honestly  translated,  signified  submission 
to  the  exactions  and  domestic  tyrannies  of  "  dear  papa "  and 
others  like  him  —  had  left  her  with  her  capacities  for  pleasure 
as  freshly  sensitive  as  a  child's.  The  smallest  change  in  the 
routine  of  existence  thrilled  her  with  excitement.  Tembarom's 
casual  references  to  his  strenuous  boyhood  caused  her  eyes  to 
widen  with  eagerness  to  hear  more.  Having  seen  this,  he  found 
keen  delight  in  telling  her  stories  of  New  York  life  —  stories  of 
himself  or  of  other  lads  who  had  been  his  companions.  She 
would  drop  her  work  and  gaze  at  him  almost  with  bated  breath. 
He  was  an  excellent  raconteur  when  he  talked  of  the  things  he 
knew  well.  He  had  an  unconscious  habit  of  springing  from  his 
seat  and  acting  his  scenes  as  he  depicted  them,  laughing  and 
using  street-boy  phrasing: 

"  It 's  just  like  a  tale,"  Miss  Alicia  would  breathe,  enrap 
tured  as  he  jumped  from  one  story  to  another.  "  It 's  exactly 
like  a  wonderful  tale." 

She  learned  to  know  the  New  York  streets  when  they  blazed 
with  heat,  when  they  were  hard  with  frozen  snow,  when  they 


260  T.    TEMBAROM 

were  sloppy  with  melting  slush  or  bright  with  springtime  sun 
shine  and  spring  winds  blowing,  with  pretty  women  hurrying 
about  in  Deflowered  spring  hats  and  dresses  and  the  exhilaration 
of  the  world-old  springtime  joy.  She  found  herself  hurrying 
with  them.  She  sometimes  hung  with  him  and  his  companions 
on  the  railing  outside  dazzling  restaurants  where  scores  of  gay 
people  ate  rich  food  in  the  sight  of  their  boyish  ravenousness. 
She  darted  in  and  out  among  horses  and  vehicles  to  find  car 
riages  after  the  theater  or  opera,  where  everybody  was  dressed 
dazzlingly  and  diamonds  glittered. 

"  Oh,  how  rich  everybody  must  have  seemed  to  you  —  how 
cruelly  rich,  poor  little  boy ! " 

"  They  looked  rich,  right  enough/'  he  answered  when  she  said 
it.  "  And  there  seemed  a  lot  of  good  things  to  eat  all  corralled 
in  a  few  places.  And  you  wished  you  could  be  let  loose  inside. 
But  I  don't  know  as  it  seemed  cruel.  That  was  the  way  it  was, 
you  know,  and  you  couldn't  help  it.  And  there  were  places 
where  they'd  give  away  some  of  what  was  left.  I  tell  you,  we 
were  in  luck  then." 

There  was  some  spirit  in  his  telling  it  all  —  a  spirit  which 
had  surely  been  with  him  through  his  hardest  days,  a  spirit  of 
young  mirth  in  rags  —  which  made  her  feel  subconsciously  that 
the  whole  experience  had,  after  all,  been  somehow  of  the  nature 
of  life's  high  adventure.  He  had  never  been  ill  or  heart-sick, 
and  he  laughed  when  he  talked  of  it,  as  though  the  remembrance 
was  not  a  recalling  of  disaster. 

"  Clemmin'  or  no  clemmin',  I  wish  I  'd  lived  the  loife  tha  's 
lived,"  Tummas  Hibblethwaite  had  said. 

Her  amazement  would  indeed  have  been  great  if  she  had 
been  told  that  she  secretly  shared  his  feeling. 

"It  seems  as  if  somehow  you  had  never  been  dull,"  was  her 
method  of  expressing  it. 

"  Dull !  Holy  cats !  no,"  he  grinned.  "  There  was  n't  any 
time  for  being  anything.  You  just  had  to  keep  going." 

She  became  in  time  familiar  with  Mrs.  Bowse's  boarding- 
house  and  boarders.  She  knew  Mrs.  Peck  and  Mr.  Jakes  and 
the  young  lady  from  the  notion  counter  (those  wonderful 
shops!).  Julius  and  Jem  and  the  hall  bedroom  and  the  tilted 


T.    TEMBAROM  261 

chairs  and  cloud  of  smoke  she  saw  so  often  that  she  felt  at 
home  with  them. 

"  Poor  Mrs.  Bowse/'  she  said,  "  must  have  been  a  most 
respectable,  motherly,  hard-working  creature.  Really  a  nice 
person  of  her  class."  She  could  not  quite  visualize  the  "  par 
lor,"  but  it  must  have  been  warm  and  comfortable.  And  the 
pianola  —  a  piano  which  you  could  play  without  even  knowing 
your  notes  —  What  a  clever  invention !  America  seemed  full 
of  the  most  wonderfully  clever  things. 

Tembarom  was  actually  uplifted  in  soul  when  he  discovered 
that  she  laid  transparent  little  plans  for  leading  him  into  talk 
about  New  York.  She  wanted  him  to  talk  about  it,  and  the 
Lord  knows  he  wanted  to  talk  about  himself.  He  had  been 
afraid  at  first.  She  might  have  hated  it,  as  Palford  did,  and  it 
would  have  hurt  him  somehow  if  she  hadn't  understood.  But 
she  did.  Without  quite  realizing  the  fact,  she  was  beginning  to 
love  it,  to  wish  she  had  seen  it.  Her  Somerset  vicarage  im 
agination  did  not  allow  of  such  leaps  as  would  be  implied  by 
the  daring  wish  that  sometime  she  might  see  it. 

But  Tembarom's  imagination  was  more  athletic. 

"  Jinks !  would  n't  it  be  fine  to  take  her  there !  The  lark  in 
London  wouldn't  be  ace  high  to  it." 

The  Hutchinsons  were  not  New  Yorkers,  but  they  had  been 
part  of  the  atmosphere  of  Mrs.  Bowse's.  Mr.  Hutchinson 
would  of  course  be  rather  a  forward  and  pushing  man  to  be 
obliged  to  meet,  but  Little  Ann!  .She  did  so  like  Little  Ann! 
And  the  dear  boy  did  so  want,  in  his  heart  of  hearts,  to  talk 
about  her  at  times.  She  did  not  know  whether,  in  the  cir 
cumstances,  she  ought  to  encourage  him;  but  he  was  so  dear, 
and  looked  so  much  dearer  when  he  even  said  "  Little  Ann," 
that  she  could  not  help  occasionally  leading  him  gently  toward 
the  subject. 

When  he  opened  the  newspapers  and  found  the  advertise 
ments  of  the  flats,  she  saw  the  engaging,  half-awkward  humor- 
ousness  come  into  his  eyes. 

"  Here 's  one  that  would  do  all  right,"  he  said  — "  four  rooms 
and  a  bath,  eleventh  floor,  thirty-five  dollars  a  month." 

He  spread  the  newspaper  on  the  table  and  rested  on  his  elbow, 


262  T.    TEMBAROM 

gazing  at  it  for  a  few  minutes  wholly  absorbed.  Then  he  looked 
up  at  her  and  smiled. 

"  There  's  a  plan  of  the  rooms/'  he  said.  "  Would  you  like 
to  look  at  it?  Shall  I  bring  your  chair  up  to  the  table  while 
we  go  over  it  together?" 

He  brought  the  chair,  and  side  by  side  they  went  over  it 
thoroughly.  To  Miss  Alicia  it  had  all  the  interest  of  a  new 
kind  of  puzzle.  He  explained  it  in  every  detail.  One  of  his 
secrets  had  been  that  on  several  days  when  Galton's  manner  had 
made  him  hopeful  he  had  visited  certain  flat  buildings  and  gone 
into  their  intricacies.  He  could  therefore  describe  with  color 
their  resources  —  the  janitor ;  the  elevator ;  the  dumb-waiters  to 
carry  up  domestic  supplies  and  carry  down  ashes  and  refuse; 
the  refrigerator;  the  unlimited  supply  of  hot  and  cold  water, 
the  heating  plan ;  the  astonishing  little  kitchen,  with  stationary 
wash-tubs;  the  telephone,  if  you  could  afford  it, —  all  the  con 
veniences  which  to  Miss  Alicia,  accustomed  to  the  habits  of 
Eowcroft  Vicarage,  where  you  lugged  cans  of  water  up-stairs 
and  down  if  you  took  a  bath  or  even  washed  your  face,  seemed 
luxuries  appertaining  only  to  the  rich  and  great. 

"How  convenient!  How  wonderful!  Dear  me!  Dear 
me ! "  she  said  again  and  again,  quite  flushed  with  excitement. 
"  It  is  like  a  fairy-story.  And  it 's  not  big  at  all,  is  it  ?  " 

"  You  could  get  most  of  it  into  this/'  he  answered,  exulting. 
"  You  could  get  all  of  it  into  that  big  white-and  gold  parlor." 

"The  white  saloon?" 

He  showed  his  teeth. 

"  I  guess  I  ought  to  remember  to  call  it  that,"  he  said,  "  but  it 
always  makes  me  think  of  Kid  MacMurphy's  on  Fourth  Avenue. 
He  kept  what  was  called  a  saloon,  and  he  'd  had  it  painted 
white." 

"  Did  you  know  him  ?  "     Miss  Alicia  asked. 

"  Know  him !  Gee !  no !  I  did  n't  fly  as  high  as  that.  He  'd 
have  thought  me  pretty  fresh  if  I  'd  acted  like  I  knew  him. 
He  thought  he  was  one  of  the  Four  Hundred.  He  'd  been 
a  prize-fighter.  He  was  the  fellow  that  knocked  out  Kid  Wil- 
kens  in  four  rounds."  He  broke  off  and  laughed  at  himself. 
"  Hear  me  talk  to  you  about  a  tough  like  that ! "  he  ended, 


T.    TEMBAROM  263 

and  he  gave  her  hand  the  little  apologetic,  protective  pat  which 
always  made  her  heart  beat  because  it  was  so  "nice/' 

He  drew  her  back  to  the  advertisements,  and  drew  such  in 
teresting  pictures  of  what  the  lives  of  two  people  —  mother  and 
son  or  father  and  daughter  or  a  young  married  couple  who 
didn't  want  to  put  on  style  —  might  be  in  the  tiny  compart 
ments,  that  their  excitement  mounted  again. 

This  could  be  a  bedroom,  that  could  be  a  bedroom,  that  could 
be  the  living-room,  and  if  you  put  a  bit  of  bright  carpet  on 
the  hallway  and  hung  up  a  picture  or  so,  it  would  look  first- 
rate.  He  even  went  into  the  matter  of  measurements,  which 
made  it  more  like  putting  a  puzzle  together  than  ever,  and 
their  relief  when  they  found  they  could  fit  a  piece  of  furniture 
he  called  "  a  lounge "  into  a  certain  corner  was  a  thing  of 
flushing  delight.  The  "  lounge,"  she  found,  was  a  sort  of  cot 
with  springs.  You  could  buy  them  for  three  dollars,  and  when 
you  put  on  a  mattress  and  covered  it  with  a  "  spread,"  you 
could  sit  on  it  in  the  daytime  and  sleep  on  it  at  night,  if  you 
had  to. 

From  measurements  he  went  into  calculations  about  the  cost 
of  things.  He  had  seen  unpainted  wooden  tables  you  could  put 
mahogany  stain  on,  and  they  'd  look  all  you  'd  want.  He  'd 
seen  a  splendid  little  rocking-chair  in  Second  Avenue  for  five 
dollars,  one  of  the  padded  kind  that  ladies  like.  He  had  seen 
an  arm-chair  for  a  man  that  was  only  seven;  but  there  might  n't 
be  room  for  both,  and  you'd  have  to  have  the  rocking-chair. 
He  had  once  asked  the  price  of  a  lot  of  plates  and  cups  and 
saucers  with  roses  on  them,  and  you  could  get  them  for  six; 
and  you  didn't  need  a  stove  because  there  was  the  range. 

He  had  once  heard  Little  Ann  talking  to  Mrs.  Bowse  about 
the  price  of  frying-pans  and  kettles,  and  they  seemed  to  cost 
next  to  nothing.  He  'd  looked  into  store  windows  and  noticed 
the  prices  of  groceries  and  vegetables  and  things  like  that  — 
sugar,  for  instance ;  two  people  would  n't  use  much  sugar  in  a 
week  —  and  they  would  n't  need  a  ton  of  tea  or  flour  or  coffee. 
If  a  fellow  had  a  mother  or  sister  or  wife  who  had  a  head  and 
knew  about  things,  you  could  "put  it  over"  on  mighty  little, 
and  have  a  splendid  time  together,  too.  You'd  even  be  able 


264  T.    TEMBAEOM 

to  work  in  a  cheap  seat  in  a  theater  every  now  and  then.  He 
laughed  and  flushed  as  he  thought  of  it. 

Miss  Alicia  had  never  had  a  doll's  house.  Bowcroft  Vicarage 
did  not  run  to  dolls  and  their  belongings.  Her  thwarted  long 
ing  for  a  doll's  house  had  a  sort  of  parallel  in  her  similarly 
thwarted  longing  for  "a  little  boy." 

And  here  was  her  doll's  house  so  long,  so  long  unpossessed! 
It  was  like  that,  this  absorbed  contriving  and  fitting  of  furni 
ture  into  corners.  She  also  flushed  and  laughed.  Her  eyes 
were  so  brightly  eager  and  her  cheeks  so  pink  that  she  looked 
quite  girlish  under  her  lace  cap. 

"  How  pretty  and  cozy  it  might  be  made,  how  dear ! "  she 
exclaimed.  "And  one  would  be  so  high  up  on  the  eleventh 
floor,  that  one  would  feel  like  a  bird  in  a  nest." 

His  face  lighted.     He  seemed  to  like  the  idea  tremendously. 

"  Why,  that 's  so,"  he  laughed.  "  That  idea  suits  me  down 
to  the  ground.  A  bird  in  a  nest.  But  there  ?d  -have  to  be 
two.  One  would  be  lonely.  Say,  Miss  Alicia,  how  would  you 
like  to  live  in  a  place  like  that  ?  " 

"  I  am  sure  any  one  would  like  it  —  if  they  had  some  dear 
relative  with  them." 

He  loved  her  "  dear  relative,"  loved  it.  He  knew  how  much 
it  meant  of  what  had  lain  hidden  unacknowledged,  even  un 
known  to  her,  through  a  lifetime  in  her  early- Victorian  spinster 
breast. 

"  Let 's  go  to  New  York  and  rent  one  and  live  in  it  together. 
Would  you  come  ?  "  he  said,  and  though  he  laughed,  he  was  not 
jocular  in  the  usual  way.  "Would  you,  if  we  waked  up  and 
found  this  Temple  Barholm  thing  was  a  dream  ?  " 

Something  in  his  manner,  she  did  not  know  what,  puzzled 
her  a  little. 

"  But  if  it  were  a  dream,  you  would  be  quite  poor  again,"  she 
said,  smiling. 

"  No,  I  would  n't.  I  'd  get  Galton  to  give  me  back  the  page. 
He  'd  do  it  quick  —  quick,"  he  said,  still  with  a  laugh.  "  Being 
poor's  nothing,  anyhow.  We'd  have  the  time  of  our  lives. 
We  'd  be  two  birds  in  a  nest.  You  can  look  out  those  eleventh- 
story  windows  'way  over  to  the  Bronx,  and  get  bits  of  the  river. 


T.    TEMBAEOM  265 

And  perhaps  after  a  while  Ann  would  do  —  like  she  said,  and 
we  'd  be  three  birds." 

"  Oh ! "  she  sighed  ecstatically.  "  How  beautiful  it  would 
be!  We  should  be  a  little  family!" 

"So  we  should/'  he  exulted.  "Think  of  T.  T.  with  a 
family !  "  He  drew  his  paper  of  calculations  toward  him  again. 
"  Let  's  make  believe  we  're  going  to  do  it,  and  work  out  what  it 
would  cost  —  for  three.  You  know  about  housekeeping,  don't 
you?  Let's  write  down  a  list." 

If  he  had  warmed  to  his  work  before,  he  warmed  still  more 
after  this.  Miss  Alicia  was  drawn  into  it  again,  and  followed 
his  fanciful  plans  with  a  new  fervor.  They  were  like  two  chil 
dren  who  had  played  at  make-believe  until  they  had  lost  sight  of 
commonplace  realities. 

Miss  Alicia  had  lived  among  small  economies  and  could  be 
of  great  assistance  to  him.  They  made  lists  and  added  up  lines 
of  figures  until  the  fine,  huge  room  and  its  thousands  of  volumes 
melted  away.  In  the  great  hall,  guarded  by  warriors  in  armor, 
the  powdered  heads  of  the  waiting  footmen  drooped  and  nodded 
while  the  prices  of  pounds  of  butter  and  sugar  and  the  value 
of  potatoes  and  flour  and  nutmegs  were  balanced  with  a  hectic 
joy,  and  the  relative  significance  of  dollars  and  cents  and  shill 
ings  and  half-crowns  and  five-cent  pieces  caused  Miss  Alicia 
a  mild  delirium. 

By  the  time  that  she  had  established  the  facts  that  a  shilling 
was  something  like  twenty-five  cents,  a  dollar  was  four  and 
twopence,  and  twenty-five  dollars  was  something  over  five 
pounds,  it  was  past  midnight. 

They  heard  the  clock  strike  the  half-hour,  and  stopped  to 
stare  at  each  other. 

Tembarom  got  up  with  yet  another  laugh. 

"  Say,  I  must  n't  keep  you  up  all  night,"  he  said.  "  But 
have  n't  we  had  a  fine  time  —  have  n't  we  ?  I  feel  as  if  I  'd 
been  there." 

They  had  been  there  so  entirely  that  Miss  Alicia  brought  her 
self  back  with  difficulty. 

"  I  can  scarcely  believe  that  we  have  not,"  she  said.  "  I 
feel  as  if  I  did  n't  like  to  leave  it.  It  was  so  delightful."  She 


266  T.    TEMBAROM 

glanced    about    her.     "  The    room    looks    huge,"    she    said  — 
"  almost  too  huge  to  live  in." 

"  Does  n't  it  ?  "  he  answered.  "  Now  you  know  how  I  feel." 
He  gathered  his  scraps  of  paper  together  with  a  feeling  touch. 
"I  didn't  want  to  come  back  myself.  When  I  get  a  bit  of  a 
grouch  I  shall  jerk  these  out  and  go  back  there  again." 

"  Oh,  do  let  me  go  with  you ! "  she  said.  "  I  have  so  en 
joyed  it." 

"You  shall  go  whenever  you  like,"  he  said.  "We'll  keep 
it  up  for  a  sort  of  game  on  rainy  days.  How  much  is  a  dollar, 
Miss  Alicia  ?  " 

"  Four  and  twopence.     And  sugar  is  six  cents  a  pound." 

"  Go  to  the  head/'  he  answered.     "  Right  again." 

The  opened  roll  of  newspapers  was  lying  on  the  table  near 
her.  They  were  copies  of  The  Earth,  and  the  date  of  one 
of  them  by  merest  chance  caught  her  eye. 

"  How  odd ! "  she  said.  "  Those  are  old  papers.  Did  you 
notice?  Is  it  a  mistake?  This  one  is  dated — "  She  leaned 
forward,  and  her  eye  caught  a  word  in  a  head-line. 

"  The  Klondike,"  she  read.  "  There  's  something  in  it  about 
the  Klondike."  He  put  his  hand  out  and  drew  the  papers 
away. 

"  Don't  you  read  that,"  he  said.  "  I  don't  want  you  to  go  to 
bed  and  dream  about  the  Klondike.  You've  got  to  dream 
about  the  flat  in  Harlem." 

"  Yes,"  she  answered.  "  I  must  n't  think  about  sad  things. 
The  flat  in  Harlem  is  quite  happy.  But  it  startled  me  to 
see  that  word." 

"I  only  sent  for  them — 'because  I  happened  to  want  to 
look  something  up,"  he  explained.  "  How  much  is  a  pound, 
Miss  Alicia?" 

"  Four  dollars  and  eighty-six  cents,"  she  replied,  recovering 
herself. 

"  Go  up  head  again.     You  're  going  to  stay  there." 

When  she  gave  him  her  hand  on  their  parting  for  the  night 
he  held  it  a  moment.  A  subtle  combination  of  things  made  him 
do  it.  The  calculations,  the  measurements,  the  nest  from  which 
one  could  look  out  over  the  Bronx,  were  prevailing  elements  in 


T.    TEMBAEOM  267 

its  make-up.  Ann  had  been  in  each  room  of  the  Harlem  flat, 
and  she  always  vaguely  reminded  him  of  Ann. 

"We  are  relations,  ain't  we?"  he  asked. 

"I  am  sure  we  often  seem  quite  near  relations  —  Temple." 
She  added  the  name  with  very  pretty  kindness. 

"  We  're  not  distant  ones  any  more,  anyhow,"  he  said. 
"  Are  we  near  enough  —  would  you  let  me  kiss  you  good  night, 
Miss  Alicia?" 

An  emotional  flush  ran  up  to  her  cap  ribbons. 

''Indeed,  my  dear  boy  —  indeed,  yes." 

Holding  her  hand  with  a  chivalric,  if  slightly  awkward, 
courtesy,  he  bent,  and  kissed  her  cheek.  It  was  a  hearty, 
affectionately  grateful  young  kiss,  which,  while  it  was  for  her 
self,  remotely  included  Ann. 

"  It  'a  the  first  time  I  've  ever  said  good  night  to  any  one 
like  that,"  he  said.  "  Thank  you  for  letting  me." 

He  patted  her  hand  again  before  releasing  it.  She  went 
up-stairs  blushing  and  feeling  rather  as  though  she  had  been 
proposed  to,  and  yet,  spinster  though  she  was,  somehow  quite 
understanding  about  the  nest  and  Ann. 


CHAPTEE  XXI 

ADY  Mallowe  and  her  daughter  did  not 
pay  their  visit  to  Asshawe  Holt,  the 
absolute,  though  not  openly  referred  to, 
fact  being  that  they  had  not  been  invited. 
The  visit  in  question  had  merely  floated  in 
the  air  as  a  delicate  suggestion  made  by 
her  ladyship  in  her  letter  to  Mrs.  Asshe 
Shaw,  to  the  effect  that  she  and  Joan  were 
going  to  stay  at  Temple  Barholm,  the  visit 
to  Asshawe  they  had  partly  arranged  some  time  ago  might  now 
be  fitted  in. 

The  partial  arrangement  itself,  Mrs.  Asshe  Shaw  remarked 
to  her  eldest  daughter  when  she  received  the  suggesting  note, 
was  so  partial  as  to  require  slight  consideration,  since  it  had 
been  made  "  by  the  woman  herself,  who  would  push  herself 
and  her  daughter  into  any  house  in  England  if  a  back  door 
were  left  open."  In  the  civilly  phrased  letter  she  received  in 
answer  to  her  own,  Lady  Mallowe  read  between  the  lines  the 
point  of  view  taken,  and  writhed  secretly,  as  she  had  been 
made  to  writhe  scores  of  times  in  the  course  of  her  career.  It 
had  happened  so  often,  indeed,  that  it  might  have  been 
imagined  that  she  had  become  used  to  it;  but  the  woman  who 
acted  as  maid  to  herself  and  Joan  always  knew  when  "  she  had 
tried  to  get  in  somewhere"  and  failed. 

The  note  of  explanation  sent  immediately  to  Miss  Alicia  was 
at  once  adroit  and  amiable.  They  had  unfortunately  been  de 
tained  in  London  a  day  or  two  past  the  date  fixed  for  their 
visit  to  Asshawe,  and  Lady  Mallowe  would  not  allow  Mrs. 
Asshe  Shawe,  who  had  so  many  guests,  to  be  inconvenienced 
by  their  arriving  late  and  perhaps  disarranging  her  plans.  So 
if  it  was  quite  convenient,  they  would  come  to  Temple  Bar- 

268 


T.    TEMBAEOM  269 

holm  a  week  earlier;  but  not,  of  course,  if  that  would  be  the 
least  upsetting. 

When  they  arrived,  Tembarom  himself  was  in  London.  He 
had  suddenly  found  he  was  obliged  to  go.  The  business  which 
called  him  was  something  which  could  not  be  put  off.  He 
expected  to  return  at  once.  It  was  made  very  easy  for  him 
when  he  made  his  excuses  to  Palliser,  who  suggested  that  he 
might  even  find  himself  returning  by  the  same  train  with  his 
guests,  which  would  give  him  opportunities.  If  he  was  de 
tained,  Miss  Alicia  could  take  charge  of  the  situation.  They 
would  quite  understand  when  she  explained.  Captain  Palliser 
foresaw  for  himself  some  quiet  entertainment  in  his  own  meet 
ing  with  the  visitors.  Lady  Mallowe  always  provided  a  cer 
tain  order  of  amusement  for  him,  and  no  man  alive  objected 
to  finding  interest  and  even  a  certain  excitement  in  the  society 
of  Lady  Joan.  It  was  her  chief  characteristic  that  she  inspired 
in  a  man  a  vague,  even  if  slightly  irritated,  desire  to  please 
her  in  some  degree.  To  lead  her  on  to  talk  in  her  sometimes 
brilliant,  always  heartlessly  unsparing,  fashion,  perhaps  to 
smile  her  shade  of  a  bitter  smile,  gave  a  man  something  to  do, 
especially  if  he  was  bored.  Palliser  anticipated  a  possible 
chance  of  repeating  the  dialogue  of  "the  ladies,"  not,  however, 
going  into  the  Jem  Temple  Barholm  part  of  it.  When  one 
finds  a  man  whose  idle  life  has  generated  in  him  the  curiosity 
which  is  usually  called  feminine,  it  frequently  occupies  him 
more  actively  than  he  is  aware  or  will  admit. 

A  fashionable  male  gossip  is  a  curious  development.  Palli 
ser  was,  upon  the  whole,  not  aware  that  he  had  an  intense 
interest  in  finding  out  the  exact  reason  why  Lady  Mallowe  had 
not  failed  utterly  in  any  attempt  to  drag  her  daughter  to  this 
particular  place,  to  be  flung  headlong,  so  to  speak,  at  this 
special  man.  Lady  Mallowe  one  could  run  and  read,  but  Lady 
Joan  was  in  this  instance  unexplainable.  And  as  she  never 
deigned  the  slightest  concealment,  the  story  of  the  dialogue 
would  no  doubt  cause  her  to  show  her  hand.  She  must  have 
a  hand,  and  it  must  be  one  worth  seeing. 

It  was  not  he,  however,  who  could  either  guess  or  understand. 
The  following  would  have  been  his  summing  up  of  her: 


270  T.   TEMBAROM 

"Flaringly  handsome  girl,  brought  up  by  her  mother  to  one 
end.  Bad  temper  to  begin  with.  Girl  who  might,  if  she  lost 
her  head,  get  into  some  frightful  mess.  Meets  a  fascinating 
devil  in  the  first  season.  A  regular  Romeo  and  Juliet  passion 
blazes  up  —  all  for  love  and  the  world  well  lost.  All  London 
looking  on.  Lady  Mallowe  frantic  and  furious.  Suddenly 
the  fascinating  devil  ruined  for  life,  done  for.  Bolts,  gets 
killed.  Lady  Mallowe  triumphant.  Girl  dragged  about  after 
ward  like  a  beautiful  young  demon  in  chains.  Refuses  all 
sorts  of  things.  Behaves  infernally.  Nobody  knows  anything 
else/' 

Nobody  did  know;  Lady  Mallowe  herself  did  not.  From  the 
first  year  in  which  Joan  had  looked  at  her  with  child  conscious 
ness  she  had  felt  that  there  was  antagonism  in  the  deeps  of  her 
eyes.  No  mother  likes  to  recognize  such  a  thing,  and  Lady 
Mallowe  was  a  particularly  vain  woman.  The  child  was  going 
to  be  an  undeniable  beauty,  and  she  ought  to  adore  the  mother 
who  was  to  arrange  her  future.  Instead  of  which,  she  plainly 
disliked  her.  By  the  time  she  was  three  years  old,  the  antag 
onism  had  become  defiance  and  rebellion.  Lady  Mallowe  could 
not  even  indulge  herself  in  the  satisfaction  of  showing  her 
embryo  beauty  off,  and  thus  preparing  a  reputation  for  her. 
She  was  not  cross  or  tearful,  but  she  had  the  temper  of  a  little 
devil.  She  would  not  be  shown  off.  She  hated  it,  and  her 
bearing  dangerously  suggested  that  she  hated  her  handsome 
young  mother.  No  effects  could  be  produced  with  her. 

Before  she  was  four  the  antagonism  was  mutual,  and  it  in 
creased  with  years.  The  child  was  of  a  passionate  nature,  and 
had  been  born  intensely  all  her  mother  was  not,  and  intensely 
not  all  her  mother  was.  A  throw-back  to  some  high-spirited 
and  fiercely  honest  ancestor  created  in  her  a  fury  at  the  sight 
of  mean  falsities  and  dishonors.  Before  she  was  old  enough 
to  know  the  exact  cause  of  her  rage  she  was  shaken  by  it.  She 
thought  she  had  a  bad  temper,  and  was  bad  enough  to  hate  her 
own  mother  without  being  able  to  help  it.  As  she  grew  older 
she  found  out  that  she  was  not  really  so  bad  as  she  had  thought, 
though  she  was  obliged  to  concede  that  nothing  palliative  could 
be  said  about  the  temper.  It  had  been  violent  from  the  first, 


T.   TEMBAEOM  271 

and  she  had  lived  in  an  atmosphere  which  infuriated  it.  She 
did  not  suppose  such  a  thing  could  be  controlled.  It  some 
times  frightened  her.  Had  not  the  old  Marquis  of  Norborough 
been  celebrated  through  his  entire  life  for  his  furies?  Was 
there  not  a  hushed-up  rumor  that  he  had  once  thrown  a 
decanter  at  his  wife,  and  so  nearly  killed  her  that  people  had 
been  asking  one  another  in  whispers  if  a  peer  of  the  realm 
could  be  hanged.  He  had  been  born  that  way,  so  had  she. 
Her  school-room  days  had  been  a  horror  to  her,  and  also  a 
terror,  Because  she  had  often  almost  flung  ink-bottles  and 
heavy  rulers  at  her  silly,  lying  governesses,  and  once  had  dug 
a  pair  of  scissors  into  one  sneaking  old  maid  fool's  arm  when 
she  had  made  her  "see  red"  by  her  ignoble  trickeries.  Per 
haps  she  would  be  hanged  some  day  herself.  She  once  prayed 
for  a  week  that  she  might  be  made  better  tempered, —  not 
that  she  believed  in  prayer, —  and  of  course  nothing  came  of 
it. 

Every  year  she  lived  she  raged  more  furiously  at  the  tricks 
she  saw  played  by  her  mother  and  every  one  who  surrounded 
her;  the  very  servants  were  greater  liars  and  pilferers  than  any 
other  servants.  Her  mother  was  always  trying  to  get  things 
from  people  which  they  did  not  want  to  give  her.  She  would 
carry  off  slights  and  snubs  as  though  they  were  actual  tributes, 
if  she  could  gain  her  end.  The  girl  knew  what  the  meaning 
of  her  own  future  would  be.  Since  she  definitely  disliked  her 
daughter,  Lady  Mallowe  did  not  mince  matters  when  they 
were  alone.  She  had  no  money,  she  was  extremely  good  look 
ing,  she  had  a  certain  number  of  years  in  which  to  fight  for  her 
own  hand  among  the  new  debutantes  who  were  presented  every 
season.  Her  first  season  over,  the  next  season  other  girls  would 
be  fresher  than  she  was,  and  newer  to  the  men  who  were  worth 
marrying.  Men  like  novelty.  After  her  second  season  the 
debutantes  would  seem  fresher  still  by  contrast.  Then  people 
would  begin  to  say,  "  She  was  presented  four  or  five  years  ago." 
After  that  it  would  be  all  struggle, —  every  season  it  would  be 
worse.  It  would  become  awful.  Unmarried  women  over 
thirty-five  would  speak  of  her  as  though  they  had  been  in  the 
nursery  together.  Married  girls  with  a  child  or  so  would  treat 


272  T.    TEMBAROM 

her  as  though  she  were  a  maiden  aunt.  She  knew  what  was 
before  her.  Beggary  stared  them  both  in  the  face  if  she  did 
not  make  the  most  of  her  looks  and  waste  no  time.  And  Joan 
knew  it  was  all  true,  and  that  worse,  far  worse  things  were 
true  also.  She  would  be  obliged  to  spend  a  long  life  with  her 
mother  in  cheap  lodgings,  a  faded,  penniless,  unmarried  woman, 
railed  at,  taunted,  sneered  at,  forced  to  be  part  of  humiliating 
tricks  played  to  enable  them  to  get  into  debt  and  then  to  avoid 
paying  what  they  owed.  Had  she  not  seen  one  horrible  old 
woman  ©f  their  own  rank  who  was  an  example  of  what  poverty 
might  bring  one  to,  an  old  harpy  who  tried  to  queen  it  over 
her  landlady  in  an  actual  back  street,  and  was  by  turns  fawned 
upon  and  disgustingly  "your  ladyshiped"  or  outrageously  in 
sulted  by  her  landlady? 

Then  that  first  season!  Dear,  dear  God!  that  first  season 
when  she  met  Jem !  She  was  not  nineteen,  and  the  facile 
world  pretended  to  be  at  her  feet,  and  the  sun  shone  as  though 
London  were  in  Italy,  and  the  park  was  marvelous  with  flowers, 
and  there  were  such  dances  and  such  laughter! 

And  it  was  all  so  young  —  and  she  met  Jem!  It  was  at  a 
garden-party  at  a  lovely  old  house  on  the  river,  a  place  with 
celebrated  gardens  which  would  always  come  back  to  her  mem 
ory  as  a  riot  of  roses.  The  frocks  of  the  people  on  the  lawn 
looked  as  though  they  were  made  of  the  petals  of  flowers,  and 
a  mad  little  haunting  waltz  was  being  played  by  the  band,  and 
there  under  a  great  copper  birch  on  the  green  velvet  turf  near 
her  stood  Jem,  looking  at  her  with  dark,  liquid,  slanting  eyes ! 
They  were  only  a  few  feet  from  each  other, —  and  he  looked, 
and  she  looked,  and  the  haunting,  mad  little  waltz  played  on, 
and  it  was  as  though  they  had  been  standing  there  since  the 
world  began,  and  nothing  else  was  true. 

Afterward  nothing  mattered  to  either  of  them.  Lady  Mal- 
lowe  herself  ceased  to  count.  Now  and  then  the  world  stops 
for  two  people  in  this  unearthly  fashion.  At  such  times,  as  far 
as  such  a  pair  are  concerned,  causes  and  effects  cease.  Her 
bad  temper  fled,  and  she  knew  she  would  never  feel  its  furious 
lash  again. 

With  Jem  looking  at  her  with  his  glowing,  drooping  eyes, 


T.   TEMBAROM  273 

there  would  be  no  reason  for  rage  and  shame.  She  confessed 
the  temper  to  him  and  told  of  her  terror  of  it;  he  confessed  to 
her  his  fondness  for  high  play,  and  they  held  each  other's 
hands,  not  with  sentimental  youthful  lightness,  but  with  the 
strong  clasp  of  sworn  comrades,  and  promised  on  honor  that 
they  would  stand  by  each  other  every  hour  of  their  lives  against 
their  worst  selves. 

They  would  have  kept  the  pact.  Neither  was  a  slight  or 
dishonest  creature.  The  phase  of  life  through  which  they 
passed  is  not  a  new  one,  but  it  is  not  often  so  nearly  an  omnipo 
tent  power  as  was  their  three-months'  dream. 

It  lasted  only  that  length  of  time.  Then  came  the  end  of 
the  world.  Joan  did  not  look  fresh  in  her  second  season,  and 
before  it  was  over  men  were  rather  afraid  of  her.  Because  she 
was  so  young  the  freshness  returned  to  her  cheek,  but  it  never 
came  back  to  her  eyes. 

What  exactly  had  happened,  or  what  she  thought,  it  was  im 
possible  to  know.  She  had  delicate,  black  brows,  and  between 
them  appeared  two  delicate,  fierce  lines.  Her  eyes  were  of  a 
purplish-gray,  "the  color  of  thunder,"  a  snubbed  admirer  had 
once  said.  Between  their  black  lashes  they  were  more  deeply 
thunder-colored.  Her  life  with  her  mother  was  a  thing  not  to 
be  spoken  of.  To  the  desperate  girl's  agony  of  rebellion 
against  the  horror  of  fate  Lady  Mallowe's  taunts  and  berat- 
ings  were  devilish.  There  was  a  certain  boudoir  in  the  house 
in  Hill  Street  which  was  to  Joan  like  the  question  chamber  of 
the  Inquisition.  Shut  up  in  it  together,  the  two  went  through 
scenes  which  in  their  cruelty  would  have  done  credit  to  the 
Middle  Ages.  Lady  Mallowe  always  locked  the  door  to  pre 
vent  the  unexpected  entrance  of  a  servant,  but  servants  man 
aged  to  hover  about  it,  because  her  ladyship  frequently  forgot 
caution  so  far  as  to  raise  her  voice  at  times,  as  ladies  are  not 
supposed  to  do. 

"  We  fight,"  Joan  said  with  a  short,  horrible  laugh  one 
morning — "we  fight  like  cats  and  dogs.  No,  like  two  cats. 
A  cat-and-dog  fight  is  more  quickly  over.  Some  day  we  shall 
scratch  each  other's  eyes  out." 

"  Have  you  no  shame  ?  "  her  mother  cried. 


274  T.   TEMBAKOM 

"I  am  burning  with  it.  I  am  like  St.  Lawrence  on  his 
gridiron.  '  Turn  me  over  on  the  other  side/  "  she  quoted. 

This  was  when  she  had  behaved  so  abominably  to  the  Duke 
of  Merthshire  that  he  had  actually  withdrawn  his  more  than 
half-finished  proposal.  That  which  she  hated  more  than  all 
else  was  the  God  she  had  prayed  to  when  she  asked  she  might 
be  helped  to  control  her  temper. 

She  had  not  believed  in  Him  at  the  time,  but  because  she 
was  frightened  after  she  had  stuck  the  scissors  into  Fraulein 
she  had  tried  the  appeal  as  an  experiment.  The  night  after 
she  met  Jem,  when  she  went  to  her  room  in  Hill  Street  for 
the  night,  she  knelt  down  and  prayed  because  she  suddenly  did 
believe.  Since  there  was  Jem  in  the  world,  there  must  be  the 
other  somewhere. 

As  day  followed  day,  her  faith  grew  with  her  love.  She 
told  Jem  about  it,  and  they  agreed  to  say  a  prayer  together  at 
the  same  hour  every  night.  The  big  young  man  thought  her 
piety  beautiful,  and  his  voice  was  unsteady  as  they  talked. 
But  she  told  him  that  she  was  not  pious,  but  impious. 

"  I  want  to  be  made  good,"  she  said.  "  I  have  been  bad  all 
my  life.  I  was  a  bad  child,  I  have  been  a  bad  girl ;  but  now  I 
must  be  good." 

On  the  night  after  the  tragic  card-party  she  went  to  her 
room  and  kneeled  down  in  a  new  spirit.  She  knelt,  but  not  to 
cover  her  face,  she  knelt  with  throat  strained  and  her  fierce 
young  face  thrown  back  and  upward. 

Her  hands  were  clenched  to  fists  and  flung  out  and  shaken 
at  the  ceiling.  She  said  things  so  awful  that  her  own  blood 
shuddered  as  she  uttered  them.  But  she  could  not  —  in  her 
mad  helplessness  —  make  them  awful  enough.  She  flung  her 
self  on  the  carpet  at  last,  her  arms  outstretched  like  a  creature 
crucified  face  downward  on  the  cross. 

"  I  believed  in  You !  "  she  gasped.  "  The  first  moment  you 
gave  me  a  reason  I  believed.  I  did !  I  did !  We  both  said  our 
prayer  to  You  every  night,  like  children.  And  you  Jve  done  this 
—  this  —  this !  "  And  she  beat  with  her  fists  upon  the  floor. 

Several  years  had  passed  since  that  night,  and  no  living 
being  knew  what  she  carried  in  her  soul.  If  she  had  a  soul, 


T.    TEMBAROM  275 

she  said  to  herself,  it  was  black  —  black.  But  she  had  none. 
Neither  had  Jem  had  one ;  when  the  earth  and  stones  had  fallen 
upon  him  it  had  been  the  end,  as  it  would  have  been  if  he 
had  been  a  beetle. 

This  was  the  guest  who  was  coming  to  the  house  where  Miles. 
Hugo  smiled  from  his  frame  in  the  picture-gallery  —  the  house 
which  would  to-day  have  been  Jem's  if  T.  Tembarom  had  not 
inherited  it. 

Tembarom  returned  some  twenty-four  hours  after  Miss  Alicia 
had  received  his  visitors  for  him.  He  had  been  "  going  into  " 
absorbing  things  in  London.  His  thoughts  during  his  north 
ward  journey  were  puzzled  and  discouraged  ones.  He  sat  in 
the  corner  of  the  railway  carriage  and  stared  out  of  the  window 
without  seeing  the  springtime  changes  in  the  flying  landscape. 

The  price  he  would  have  given  for  a  talk  with  Ann  would 
not  have  been  easy  to  compute.  Her  head,  her  level  little  head, 
and  her  way  of  seeing  into  things  and  picking  out  facts  with 
out  being  rattled  by  what  did  n't  really  count,  would  have  been 
worth  anything.  The  day  itself  was  a  discouraging  one,  with 
heavy  threatenings  of  rain  which  did  not  fall. 

The  low  clouds  were  piles  of  dark-purple  gray,  and  when  the 
sun  tried  to  send  lances  of  ominous  yellow  light  through  them, 
strange  and  lurid  effects  were  produced,  and  the  heavy  purple- 
gray  masses  rolled  together  again.  He  wondered  why  he  did 
not  hear  low  rumblings  of  thunder. 

He  went  to  his  room  at  once  when  he  reached  home.  He 
was  late,  and  Pearson  told  him  that  the  ladies  were  dressing 
for  dinner.  Pearson  was  in  waiting  with  everything  in  readi 
ness  for  the  rapid  performance  of  his  duties.  Tembarom  had 
learned  to  allow  himself  to  be  waited  upon.  He  had,  in  fact, 
done  this  for  the  satisfying  of  Pearson,  whose  respectful  un- 
happiness  would  otherwise  have  been  manifest  despite  his  efforts 
to  conceal  it.  He  dressed  quickly  and  asked  some  questions 
about  Strangeways.  Otherwise  Pearson  thought  he  seemed 
preoccupied.  He  only  made  one  slight  joke. 

"You'd  be  a  first-rate  dresser  for  a  quick-change  artist, 
Pearson,"  he  remarked. 


276  T.   TEMBAROM 

On  his  way  to  the  drawing-room  he  deflected  from  the  direct 
path,  turning  aside  for  a  moment  to  the  picture-gallery  be 
cause  for  a  reason  of  his  own  he  wanted  to  take  a  look  at 
Miles  Hugo.  He  took  a  look  at  Miles  Hugo  oftener  than  Miss 
Alicia  knew. 

The  gallery  was  dim  and  gloomy  enough,  now  closing  in  in  the 
purple-gray  twilight.  He  walked  through  it  without  glancing 
at  the  pictures  until  he  came  to  the  tall  boy  in  the  satin  and 
lace  of  Charles  II  period.  He  paused  there  only  for  a  short 
time,  but  he  stood  quite  near  the  portrait,  and  looked  hard  at 
the  handsome  face. 

"  Gee !  "  he  exclaimed  under  his  breath,  "  it 's  queer,  gee !  " 

Then  he  turned  suddenly  round  toward  one  of  the  big  win 
dows.  He  turned  because  he  had  been  startled  by  a  sound,  a 
movement.  Some  one  was  standing  before  the  window.  For 
a  second's  space  the  figure  seemed  as  though  it  was  almost  one 
with  the  purple-gray  clouds  that  were  its  background.  It  was 
a  tall  young  woman,  and  her  dress  was  of  a  thin  material  of 
exactly  their  color  —  dark-gray  and  purple  at  once.  The 
wearer  held  her  head  high  and  haughtily.  She  had  a  beautiful, 
stormy  face,  and  the  slender,  black  brows  were  drawn  together 
by  a  frown.  Tembarom  had  never  seen  a  girl  as  handsome  and 
disdainful.  He  had,  indeed,  never  been  looked  at  as  she  looked 
at  him  when  she  moved  slightly  forward. 

He  knew  who  it  was.  It  was  the  Lady  Joan  girl,  and  the 
sudden  sight  of  her  momentarily  "  rattled  "  him. 

"  You  quite  gave  me  a  jolt,"  he  said  awkwardly,  and  knowing 
that  he  said  it  like  a  "mutt."  "I  didn't  know  any  one  was 
in  the  gallery." 

"  What  are  you  doing  here  ?  "  she  asked.  She  spoke  to  him 
as  though  she  were  addressing  an  intruding  servant.  There 
was  emphasis  on  the  word  "you." 

Her  intention  was  so  evident  that  it  increased  his  feeling  of 
being  "rattled."  To  find  himself  confronting  deliberate  ill 
nature  of  a  superior  and  finished  kind  was  like  being  spoken  to 
in  a  foreign  language. 

"I  —  I  'm  T.  Tembarom."  he  answered,  not  able  to  keep  him 
self  from  staring  because  she  was  such  a  "  winner  "  as  to  looks. 


T.    TEMBAEOM  277 

"T.  Tembarom?"  she  repeated  slowly,  and  her  tone  made 
him  at  once  see  what  a  fool  he  had  been  to  say  it. 

"  I  forgot,"  he  half  laughed.  "  I  ought  to  have  said  I  'm 
Temple  Barholm." 

"  Oh ! "  was  her  sole  comment.  She  actually  stood  still  and 
looked  him  up  and  down. 

She  knew  perfectly  well  who  he  was,  and  she  knew  perfectly 
well  that  no  palliative  view  could  possibly  be  taken  by  any  well- 
bred  person  of  her  bearing  toward  him.  He  was  her  host. 
She  had  come,  a  guest,  to  his  house  to  eat  his  bread  and  salt, 
and  the  commonest  decency  demanded  that  she  should  conduct 
herself  with  civility.  But  she  cared  nothing  for  the  common 
est,  or  the  most  uncommon,  decency.  She  was  thinking  of 
other  things.  As  she  had  stood  before  the  window  she  had 
felt  that  her  soul  had  never  been  so  black  as  it  was  when  she 
turned  away  from  Miles  Hugo's  portrait  —  never,  never.  She 
wanted  to  hurt  people.  Perhaps  Nero  had  felt  as  she  did  and 
was  not  so  hideous  as  he  seemed. 

The  man's  tailor  had  put  him  into  proper  clothes,  and  his 
features  were  respectable  enough,  but  nothing  on  earth  could 
make  him  anything  but  what  he  so  palpably  was.  She  had 
seen  that  much  across  the  gallery  as  she  had  watched  him 
staring  at  Miles  Hugo. 

"  I  should  think,"  she  said,  dropping  the  words  slowly  again, 
"that  you  would  often  forget  that  you  are  Temple  Barholm." 

"You're  right  there,"  he  answered.  "I  can't  nail  myself 
down  to  it.  It  seems  like  a  sort  of  joke." 

She  looked  him  over  again. 

"  It  is  a  joke,"  she  said. 

It  was  as  though  she  had  slapped  him  in  the  face,  though 
she  said  it  so  quietly.  He  knew  he  had  received  the  slap,  and 
that,  as  it  was  a  woman,  he  could  not  slap  back.  It  was  a  sort 
of  surprise  to  her  that  he  did  not  giggle  nervously  and  turn 
red  and  shuffle  his  feet  in  impotent  misery.  He  kept  quite 
still  a  moment  or  so  and  looked  at  her,  though  not  as  she  had 
looked  at  him.  She  wondered  if  he  was  so  thick-skinned  that 
he  did  not  feel  anything  at  all. 

"  That 's  so,"  he  admitted.     "  That 's  so."    Then  he  actually 


278  T.   TEMBAROM 

Bmiled  at  her.  "  I  don't  know  how  to  behave  myself,  you  see," 
he  said.  "  You  're  Lady  Joan  Fayre,  ain't  you  ?  I  'm  mighty 
glad  to  see  you.  Happy  to  make  your  acquaintance,  Lady 
Joan." 

He  took  her  hand  and  shook  it  with  friendly  vigor  before 
she  knew  what  he  was  going  to  do. 

"  I  '11  bet  a  dollar  dinner 's  ready,"  he  added,  "  and  Burrill  's 
waiting.  It  scares  me  to  death  to  keep  Burrill  waiting.  He  's 
got  no  use  for  me,  anyhow.  Let's  go  and  pacify  him." 

He  did  not  lead  the  way  or  drag  her  by  the  arm,  as  it 
seemed  to  her  quite  probable  that  he  might,  as  costermongers 
do  on  Hampstead  Heath.  He  knew  enough  to  let  her  pass 
first  through  the  door;  and  when  Lady  Mallowe  looked  up  to 
see  her  enter  the  drawing-room,  he  was  behind  her.  To  her 
ladyship's  amazement  and  relief,  they  came  in,  so  to  speak, 
together.  She  had  been  spared  the  trying  moment  of  assisting 
at  the  ceremony  of  their  presentation  to  each  other. 


CHAPTEE  XXII 


N  a  certain  sense  she  had  been  dragged  to  the 
place  by  her  mother.  Lady  Mallowe  had 
many  resources,  and  above  all  she  knew  how 
to  weary  her  into  resistlessness  which  was  al 
most  indifference.  There  had  been  several 
shameless  little  scenes  in  the  locked  boudoir. 
But  though  she  had  been  dragged,  she  had 
come  with  an  intention.  She  knew  what  she 
would  find  herself  being  forced  to  submit  to  if 
the  intruder  were  not  disposed  of  at  the  outset, 
and  if  the  maneuvering  began  which  would 
bring  him  to  London.  He  would  appear  at  her  elbow  here 
and  there  and  at  every  corner,  probably  unaware  that  he  was 
being  made  an  offensive  puppet  by  the  astute  cleverness  against 
which  she  could  not  defend  herself,  unless  she  made  actual 
scenes  in  drawing-rooms,  at  dinner-tables,  in  the  very  streets 
themselves.  Gifted  as  Lady  Mallowe  was  in  fine  and  light- 
handed  dealing  of  her  cards  in  any  game,  her  stakes  at  this 
special  juncture  were  seriously  high.  Joan  knew  what  they 
were,  and  that  she  was  in  a  mood  touched  with  desperation. 
The  defenselessly  new  and  ignorant  Temple  Barholm  was  to 
her  mind  a  direct  intervention  of  Providence,  and  it  was  only 
Joan  herself  who  could  rob  her  of  the  benefits  and  reliefs  he 
could  provide.  With  regard  to  Lady  Joan,  though  Palliser's 
quoted  New  Yorkism,  "wipe  up  the  earth,"  was  unknown  to 
her,  the  process  she  had  in  mind  when  she  left  London  for 
Lancashire  would  have  been  well  covered  by  it.  As  in  feudal 
days  she  might  have  ordered  the  right  hand  of  a  creature  such 
as  this  to  be  struck  off,  forgetting  that  he  was  a  man,  so  was 
she  capable  to-day  of  inflicting  upon  him  any  hurt  which 
might  sweep  him  out  of  her  way.  She  had  not  been  a  tender- 

279 


280  T.    TEMBAROM 

hearted  girl,  and  in  these  years  she  was  absolutely  callous. 
The  fellow  being  what  he  was,  she  had  not  the  resources  she 
might  have  called  upon  if  he  had  been  a  gentleman.  He  would 
not  understand  the  chills  and  slights  of  good  manners.  In 
the  country  he  would  be  easier  to  manage  than  in  town,  espe 
cially  if  attacked  in  his  first  timidity  before  his  new  grandeurs. 
His  big  house  no  doubt  frightened  him,  his  servants,  the  people 
who  were  of  a  class  of  which  he  knew  nothing.  When  Palliser 
told  his  story  she  saw  new  openings.  He  would  stand  in 
servile  awe  of  her  and  of  others  like  her.  He  would  be  afraid 
of  her,  to  begin  with,  and  she  could  make  him  more  so. 

But  though  she  had  come  to  alarm  him  so  that  he  would 
be  put  to  absolute  flight,  she  had  also  come  for  another  reason. 
She  had  never  seen  Temple  Barholm,  and  she  had  discovered 
before  they  had  known  each  other  a  week  that  it  was  Jem's 
secret  passion.  He  had  loved  it  with  a  slighted  and  lonely 
child's  romantic  longing;  he  had  dreamed  of  it  as  boy  and  man, 
knowing  that  it  must  some  time  be  his  own,  his  home,  and 
yet  prevented  by  his  uncle's  attitude  toward  him  from  daring 
to  act  as  though  he  remembered  the  fact.  Old  Mr.  Temple 
Barholm's  special  humor  had  been  that  of  a  man  guarding 
against  presumption. 

Jem  had  not  intended  to  presume,  but  he  had  been  snubbed 
with  relentless  cruelty  even  for  boyish  expressions  of  admira 
tion.  And  he  had  hid  his  feeling  in  his  heart  until  he  poured 
it  out  to  Joan.  To-day  it  would  have  been  his.  Together, 
together,  they  would  have  lived  in  it  and  loved  every  stone 
of  it,  every  leaf  on  every  great  tree,  every  wild  daffodil  nodding 
in  the  green  grass.  Most  people,  God  be  thanked!  can  for 
get.  The  wise  ones  train  themselves  beyond  all  else  to  forget 
ting. 

Joan  had  been  a  luckless,  ill-brought-up,  passionate  child 
and  girl.  In  her  Mayfair  nursery  she  had  been  as  little  trained 
as  a  young  savage.  Since  her  black  hour  she  had  forgotten 
nothing,  allowed  herself  no  palliating  moments.  Her  brief 
dream  of  young  joy  had  been  the  one  real  thing  in  her  life. 
She  absolutely  had  lain  awake  at  night  and  reconstructed  the 
horror  of  Jem's  death,  had  lived  it  over  again,  writhing  in 


T.    TEMBAEOM  281 

agony  on  her  bed,  and  madly  feeling  that  by  so  doing  she  was 
holding  her  love  close  to  her  life. 

And  the  man  who  stood  in  the  place  Jem  had  longed  for, 
the  man  who  sat  at  the  head  of  his  table,  was  this  "  thing ! " 
That  was  what  she  felt  him  to  be,  and  every  hurt  she  could 
do  him,  every  humiliation  which  should  write  large  before  him 
his  presumption  and  grotesque  unfitness,  would  be  a  blow  struck 
for  Jem,  who  could  never  strike  a  blow  for  himself  again.  It 
was  all  senseless,  but  she  had  not  want  to  reason.  Fate  had 
not  reasoned  in  her  behalf.  She  watched  Tembarom  under  her 
lids  at  the  dinner-table. 

He  had  not  wriggled  or  shuffled  when  she  spoke  to  him  in 
the  gallery;  he  did  neither  now,  and  made  no  obvious  efforts 
to  seem  unembarrassed.  He  used  his  knife  and  fork  in  odd 
ways,  and  he  was  plainly  not  used  to  being  waited  upon. 
More  than  once  she  saw  the  servants  restrain  smiles.  She  ad 
dressed  no  remarks  to  him  herself,  and  answered  with  chill 
indifference  such  things  as  he  said  to  her.  If  conversation  had 
flagged  between  him  and  Mr.  Palford  because  the  solicitor  did 
not  know  how  to  talk  to  him,  it  did  not  even  reach  the  point 
of  flagging  with  her,  because  she  would  not  talk  and  did  not 
allow  it  to  begin.  Lady  Mallowe,  sick  with  annoyance,  was 
quite  brilliant.  She  drew  out  Miss  Alicia  by  detailed  remi 
niscences  of  a  visit  paid  to  Eowlton  Hall  years  before.  The 
vicar  had  dined  at  the  hall  while  she  had  been  there.  She 
remembered  perfectly  his  charm  of  manner  and  powerful  orig 
inality  of  mind,  she  said  sweetly.  He  had  spoken  with  such 
affection  of  his  "little  Alicia/'  who  was  such  a  help  to  him  in 
his  parish  work. 

"  I  thought  he  was  speaking  of  a  little  girl  at  first,"  she  said 
smilingly,  "but  it  soon  revealed  itself  that  'little  Alicia'  was 
only  his  caressing  diminutive." 

A  certain  widening  of  Miss  Alicia's  fascinated  eye,  which 
could  not  remove  itself  from  her  face,  caused  her  to  quail 
slightly. 

"  He  was  of  course  a  man  of  great  force  of  character  and  — 
and  expression,"  she  added.  "I  remember  thinking  at  the 
time  that  his  eloquent  frankness  of  phrase  might  perhaps  seem 


283  T.    TEMBAROM 

even  severe  to  frivolous  creatures  like  myself.  A  really  re 
markable  personality." 

"  His  sermons,"  faltered  Miss  Alicia,  as  a  refuge,  "  were 
indeed  remarkable.  I  am  sure  he  must  greatly  have  enjoyed 
his  conversations  with  you.  I  am  afraid  there  were  very  few 
clever  women  in  the  neighborhood  of  Rowlton." 

Casting  a  bitter  side  glance  on  her  silent  daughter,  Lady 
Mallowe  lightly  seized  upon  New  York  as  a  subject.  She 
knew  so  much  of  it  from  delightful  New  Yorkers.  London 
was  full  of  delightful  New  Yorkers.  She  would  like  beyond 
everything  to  spend  a  winter  in  New  York.  She  understood 
that  the  season  there  was  in  the  winter  and  that  it  was  most 
brilliant.  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  must  tell  them  about  it. 

"Yes,"  said  Lady  Joan,  looking  at  him  through  narrowed 
lids,  "  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  ought  to  tell  us  about  it." 

She  wanted  to  hear  what  he  would  say,  to  see  how  he  would 
try  to  get  out  of  the  difficulty  or  flounder  staggeringly  through 
it.  Her  mother  knew  in  an  instant  that  her  own  speech  had 
been  a  stupid  blunder.  She  had  put  the  man  into  exactly  the 
position  Joan  would  enjoy  seeing  him  in.  But  he  was  n't  in  a 
position,  it  appeared. 

"What  is  the  season,  anyhow?"  he  said.  "You've  got  one 
on  me  when  you  talk  about  seasons." 

"  In  London,"  Miss  Alicia  explained  courageously,  "  it  is 
the  time  when  her  Majesty  is  at  Buckingham  Palace,  and  when 
the  drawing-rooms  are  held,  and  Parliament  sits,  and  people 
come  up  to  town  and  give  balls." 

She  wished  that  Lady  Mallowe  had  not  made  her  remark 
just  at  this  time.  She  knew  that  the  quietly  moving  servants 
were  listening,  and  that  their  civilly  averted  eyes  had  seen 
Captain  Palliser  smile  and  Lady  Joan's  curious  look,  and  that 
the  whole  incident  would  form  entertainment  for  their  supper- 
table. 

"I  guess  they  have  it  in  the  winter  in  New  York,  then,  if 
that's  it,"  he  said.  "There's  no  Buckingham  Palace  there, 
and  no  drawing-rooms,  and  Congress  sits  in  Washington.  But 
New  York  takes  it  out  in  suppers  at  Sherry's  and  Delmonico's 
and  theaters  and  receptions.  Miss  Alicia  knows  how  I  used 


T.    TEMBAROM  283 

to  go  to  them  when  I  was  a  little  fellow,  don't  you,  Miss 
Alicia  ?  "  he  added,  smiling  at  her  across  the  table. 

"  You  have  told  me/'  she  answered.  She  noticed  that  Burrill 
and  the  footmen  stood  at  attention  in  their  places. 

"  I  used  to  stand  outside  in  the  snow  and  look  in  through 
the  windows  at  the  people  having  a  good  time,"  he  said.  "  Us 
kids  that  were  selling  newspapers  used  to  try  to  fill  ourselves 
up  with  choosing  whose  plate  we'd  take  if  we  could  get  at  it. 
Beefsteak  and  French  fried  potatoes  were  the  favorites,  and 
hot  oyster  stews.  We  were  so  all-fired  hungry !  " 

"  How  pathetic ! "  exclaimed  Lady  Mallowe.  "  And  how  in 
teresting,  now  that  it  is  all  over ! " 

She  knew  that  her  manner  was  gushing,  and  Joan's  slight 
side  glance  of  subtle  appreciation  of  the  fact  exasperated  her 
almost  beyond  endurance.  What  could  one  do,  what  could  one 
talk  about,  without  involving  oneself  in  difficulties  out  of  which 
one's  hasty  retreat  could  be  effected  only  by  gushing?  Taking 
into  consideration  the  awkwardness  of  the  whole  situation  and 
seeing  Joan's  temper  and  attitude,  if  there  had  not  been  so 
much  at  stake  she  would  have  received  a  summoning  telegram 
from  London  the  next  day  and  taken  flight.  But  she  had  been 
forced  to  hold  her  ground  before  in  places  she  detested  or 
where  she  was  not  wanted,  and  she  must  hold  it  again  until 
she  had  found  out  the  worst  or  the  best.  And,  great  heaven! 
how  Joan  was  conducting  herself,  with  that  slow,  quiet  in- 
sultingness  of  tone  and  look,  the  wicked,  silent  insolence  of 
bearing  which  no  man  was  able  to  stand,  however  admiringly 
he  began!  The  Duke  of  Merthshire  had  turned  his  back  upon 
it  even  after  all  the  world  had  known  his  intentions,  even 
after  the  newspapers  had  prematurely  announced  the  engage 
ment  and  she  herself  had  been  convinced  that  he  could  not 
possibly  retreat.  She  had  worked  desperately  that  season,  she 
had  fawned  on  and  petted  newspaper  people,  and  stooped  to 
little  things  no  one  but  herself  could  have  invented  and  which 
no  one  but  herself  knew  of.  And  never  had  Joan  been  so 
superb;  her  beauty  had  seemed  at  its  most  brilliant  height. 
The  match  would  have  been  magnificent;  but  he  could  not  stand 
her,  and  would  not.  Why,  indeed,  should  any  man?  She 


284  T.   TEMBAEOM 

glanced  at  her  across  the  table.  A  beauty,  of  course;  but  she 
was  thinner,  and  her  eyes  had  a  hungry  fierceness  in  them,  and 
the  two  delicate,  straight  lines  between  her  black  brows  were 
(deepening. 

And  there  were  no  dukes  on  the  horizon.  Merthshire  had 
married  almost  at  once,  and  all  the  others  were  too  young 
or  had  wives  already.  If  this  man  would  take  her,  she  might 
feel  herself  lucky.  Temple  Barholm  and  seventy  thousand  a 
year  were  not  to  be  trifled  with  by  a  girl  who  had  made  herself 
unpopular  and  who  was  twenty-six.  And  for  her  own  luck  the 
moment  had  come  just  before  it  was  too  late  —  a  second  mar 
riage,  wealth,  the  end  of  the  hideous  struggle.  Joan  was  the 
obstacle  in  her  path,  and  she  must  be  forced  out  of  it.  She 
glanced  quickly  at  Tembarom.  He  was  trying  to  talk  to  Joan 
now.  He  was  trying  to  please  her.  She  evidently  had  a  fas 
cination  for  him.  He  looked  at  her  in  a  curious  way  when  she 
was  not  looking  at  him.  It  was  a  way  different  from  that  of 
other  men  whom  she  had  watched  as  they  furtively  stared.  It 
had  struck  her  that  he  could  not  take  his  eyes  away.  That 
was  because  he  had  never  before  been  on  speaking  terms  with 
a  woman  of  beauty  and  rank. 

Joan  herself  knew  that  he  was  trying  to  please  her,  and 
she  was  asking  herself  how  long  he  would  have  the  courage 
and  presumption  to  keep  it  up.  He  could  scarcely  be  enjoying 
it. 

He  was  not  enjoying  it,  but  he  kept  it  up.  He  wanted  to  be 
friends  with  her  for  more  reasons  than  one.  No  one  had  ever 
remained  long  at  enmity  with  him.  He  had  "got  over"  a 
good  many  people  in  the  course  of  his  career,  as  he  had  "got 
over"  Joseph  Hutchinson.  This  had  always  been  accomplished 
because  he  presented  no  surface  at  which  arrows  could  be 
thrown.  She  was  the  hardest  proposition  he  had  ever  come 
up  against,  he  was  thinking;  but  if  he  didn't  let  himself  be 
fool  enough  to  break  loose  and  get  mad,  she'd  not  hate  him 
so  much  after  a  while.  She  would  begin  to  understand  that 
it  wasn't  his  fault;  then  perhaps  he  could  get  her  to  make 
friends.  In  fact,  if  she  had  been  able  to  read  his  thoughts, 
there  is  no  certainty  as  to  how  far  her  temper  might  have 


T.    TEMBAKOM  285 

carried  her.  But  she  could  see  him  only  as  a  sharp-faced, 
common  American  of  the  shop-boy  class,  sitting  at  the  head  of 
Jem  Temple  Barholm's  table,  in  his  chair. 

As  they  passed  through  the  hall  to  go  to  the  drawing-room 
after  the  meal  was  over,  she  saw  a  neat,  pale  young  man  speak 
ing  to  Burrill  and  heard  a  few  of  his  rather  anxiously  uttered 
words. 

"  The  orders  were  that  he  was  always  to  be  told  when  Mr. 
Strangeways  was  like  this,  under  all  circumstances.  I  can't 
quiet  him,  Mr.  Burrill.  He  says  he  must  see  him  at  once." 

Burrill   walked   back   stiffly   to   the   dining-room. 

"  It  won't  trouble  him  much  to  be  disturbed  at  his  wine,"  he 
muttered  before  going.  "  He  does  n't  know  hock  from  port." 

When  the  message  was  delivered  to  him,  Tembarom  excused 
himself  with  simple  lack  of  ceremony. 

"  I  '11  be  back  directly,"  he  said  to  Palliser.  "  Those  are 
good  cigars."  And  he  left  the  room  without  going  into  the 
matter  further. 

Palliser  took  one  of  the  good  cigars,  and  in  taking  it  ex 
changed  a  glance  with  Burrill  which  distantly  conveyed  the 
suggestion  that  perhaps  he  had  better  remain  for  a  moment  or 
so.  Captain  Palliser's  knowledge  of  interesting  detail  was  ob 
tained  "by  chance  here  and  there,"  he  sometimes  explained, 
but  it  was  always  obtained  with  a  light  and  casual  air. 

"  I  am  not  sure,"  he  remarked  as  he  took  the  light  Burrill 
held  for  him  and  touched  the  end  of  his  cigar — "  I  am  not 
quite  sure  that  I  know  exactly  who  Mr.  Strangeways  is." 

"lie's  the  gentleman,  sir,  that  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  brought 
over  from  New  York,"  replied  Burrill  with  a  stolidity  clearly 
expressive  of  distaste. 

"  Indeed,  from  New  York !    Why  does  n't  one  see  him  ?  " 

"He's  not  in  a  condition  to  see  people,  sir,"  said  Burrill, 
and  Palliser's  slightly  lifted  eyebrow  seeming  to  express  a  good 
deal,  he  added  a  sentence,  "  He  '&  not  all  there,  sir." 

"  From  New  York,  and  not  all  there.  What  seems  to  be  the 
matter  ?  "  Palliser  asked  quietly.  "  Odd  idea  to  bring  a  lunatic 
all  the  way  from  America.  There  must  be  asylums  there." 

"  Us  servants  have  orders  to  keep  out  of  the  way,"  Burrill 


286  T.    TEMBAROM 

said  with  sterner  stolidity.  "  He  's  so  nervous  that  the  sight 
of  strangers  does  him  harm.  I  may  say  that  questions  are  not 
encouraged." 

"  Then  I  must  not  ask  any  more/'  said  Captain  Palliser.  "  I 
did  not  know  I  was  edging  on  to  a  mystery/' 

"  I  was  n't  aware  that  I  was  myself,  sir,"  Burrill  remarked, 
"until  I  asked  something  quite  ordinary  of  Pearson,  who  is 
Mr.  Temple  Barholm's  valet,  and  it  was  not  what  he  said,  but 
what  he  didn't,  that  showed  me  where  I  stood." 

"A  mystery  is  an  interesting  thing  to  have  in  a  house," 
said  Captain  Palliser  without  enthusiasm.  He  smoked  his  cigar 
as  though  he  was  enjoying  its  aroma,  and  even  from  his  first 
remark  he  had  managed  not  to  seem  to  be  really  quite  ad 
dressing  himself  to  Burrill.  He  was  certainly  not  talking  to 
him  in  the  ordinary  way ;  his  air  was  rather  that  of  a  gentleman 
overhearing  casual  remarks  in  which  he  was  only  vaguely  inter 
ested.  Before  Burrill  left  the  room,  however,  and  he  left  it 
under  the  impression  that  he  had  said  no  more  than  civility 
demanded,  Captain  Palliser  had  reached  the  point  of  being  able 
to  deduce  a  number  of  things  from  what  he,  like  Pearson,  had 
not  said. 


CHAPTEE  XXIII 


HE  man  who  in  all  England  was  most  deeply 
submerged  in  deadly  boredom  was,  the  old 
Duke  of  Stone  said  with  wearied  finality, 
himself.  He  had  been  a  sinful  young  man 
of  finished  taste  in  1820;  he  had  cultivated 
these  tastes,  which  were  for  literature  and 
art  and  divers  other  things,  in  the  most  richly 
alluring  foreign  capitals  until  finding  himself 
becoming  an  equally  sinful  and  finished 
elderly  man,  he  had  decided  to  marry.  After 
the  birth  of  her  four  daughters,  his  wife  had 
died  and  left  them  on  his  hands.  Develop 
ing  at  that  time  a  tendency  to  rheumatic  gout 
and  a  daily  increasing  realization  of  the  fact  that  the  resources 
of  a  poor  dukedom  may  be  hopelessly  depleted  by  an  expensive 
youth  passed  brilliantly  in  Vienna,  Paris,  Berlin,  and  London, 
when  it  was  endurable,  he  found  it  expedient  to  give  up  what  he 
considered  the  necessities  of  life  and  to  face  existence  in  the 
country  in  England.  It  is  not  imperative  that  one  should  enter 
into  detail.  There  was  much,  and  it  covered  years  during  which 
his  four  daughters  grew  up  and  he  "  grew  down,"  as  he  called  it. 
If  his  temper  had  originally  been  a  bad  one,  it  would  doubtless 
have  become  unbearable ;  as  he  had  been  born  an  amiable  person, 
he  merely  sank  into  the  boredom  which  threatens  extinction.  His 
girls  bored  him,  his  neighbors  bored  him,  Stone  Hover  bored  him, 
Lancashire  bored  him,  England  had  always  bored  him  except 
at  abnormal  moments. 

"  I  read  a  great  deal,  I  walk  when  I  can,"  this  he  wrote  once 
to  a  friend  in  Home.  "When  I  am  too  stiff  with  rheumatic 
gout,  I  drive  myself  about  in  a  pony  chaise  and  feel  like  an 
aunt  in  a  Bath  chair.  I  have  so  far  escaped  the  actual  chair 

287 


288  T.   TEMBAEOM 

itself.  It  perpetually  rains  here,  I  may  mention,  so  I  don't 
get  out  often.  You  who  gallop  on  white  roads  in  the  sunshine 
and  hear  Italian  voices  and  vowels,  figure  to  yourself  your 
friend  trundling  through  damp,  lead-colored  Lancashire  lanes 
and  being  addressed  in  the  Lancashire  dialect.  But  so  am  I 
driven  by  necessity  that  I  listen  to  it  gratefully.  I  want  to 
hear  village  news  from  villagers.  I  have  become  a  gossip.  It 
is  a  wonderful  thing  to  be  a  gossip.  It  assists  one  to  get  through 
one's  declining  years.  Do  not  wait  so  long  as  I  did  before  be 
coming  one.  Begin  in  your  roseate  middle  age." 

An  attack  of  gout  more  severe  than  usual  had  confined  him 
to  his  room  for  some  time  after  the  arrival  of  the  new  owner 
of  Temple  Barholm.  He  had,  in  fact,  been  so  far  indisposed 
that  a  week  or  two  had  passed  before  he  had  heard  of  him.  His 
favorite  nurse  had  been  chosen  by  him,  because  she  was 
a  comfortable  village  woman  whom  he  had  taught  to  lay 
aside  her  proper  awe  and  talk  to  him  about  her  own  affairs 
and  her  neighbors  when  he  was  in  the  mood  to  listen.  She  spoke 
the  broadest  possible  dialect, —  he  liked  dialect,  having  learned 
much  in  his  youth  from  mellow-eyed  Neapolitan  and  Tuscan 
girls, —  and  she  had  never  been  near  a  hospital,  but  had  been 
trained  by  the  bedsides  of  her  children  and  neighbors. 

"  If  I  were  a  writing  person,  she  would  become  literature, 
impinging  upon  Miss  Mitford's  tales  of  '  Our  Village,'  Miss 
Austen's  varieties,  and  the  young  Bronte  woman's  'Wuthering 
Heights.'  Mon  Dieu!  what  a  resource  it  would  be  to  be  a 
writing  person ! "  he  wrote  to  the  Eoman  friend. 

To  his  daughters  he  said : 

"  She  brings  back  my  tenderest  youth.  When  she  pokes  the 
fire  in  the  twilight  and  lumbers  about  the  room,  making  me 
comfortable,  I  lie  in  my  bed  and  watch  the  flames  dancing 
on  the  ceiling  and  feel  as  if  I  were  six  and  had  the  measles. 
She  tucks  me  in,  my  dears  —  she  tucks  me  in,  I  assure  you. 
Sometimes  I  feel  it  quite  possible  that  she  will  bend  over  and 
kiss  me." 

She  had  tucked  him  in  luxuriously  in  his  arm-chair  by  the 
fire  on  the  first  day  of  his  convalescence,  and  as  she  gave  him 
his  tray,  with  his  beef  tea  and  toast,  he  saw  that  she  contained 


T.    TEMBAROM  289 

anecdotal  information  of  interest  which  tactful  encouragement 
would  cause  to  flow. 

"Now  that  I  am  well  enough  to  be  entertained,  Braddle," 
he  said,  "tell  me  what  has  been  happening." 

"  A  graidely  lot,  yore  Grace,"  she  answered ;  "  but  not  so 
much  i'  Stone  Hover  as  i'  Temple  Barholm.  He 's  coom ! " 

Then  the  duke  vaguely  recalled  rumors  he  had  heard  some 
time  before  his  indisposition. 

"  The  new  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  ?  He 's  an  American,  is  n't 
he?  The  lost  heir  who  had  to  be  sought  for  high  and  low  — 
principally  low,  I  understand." 

The  beef  tea  was  excellently  savory,  the  fire  was  warm,  and 
relief  from  two  weeks  of  pain  left  a  sort  of  Nirvana  of  peace. 
Earely  had  the  duke  passed  a  more  delightfully  entertaining 
morning.  There  was  a  richness  in  the  Temple  Barholm  situ 
ation,  as  described  in  detail  by  Mrs.  Braddle,  which  filled  him 
with  delight.  His  regret  that  he  was  not  a  writing  person 
intensified  itself.  Americans  had  not  appeared  upon  the  hori 
zon  in  Miss  Mitford's  time,  or  in  Miss  Austen's,  or  in  the 
Brontes'  the  type  not  having  entirely  detached  itself  from  that 
of  the  red  Indian.  It  struck  him,  however,  that  Miss  Austen 
might  have  done  the  best  work  with  this  affair  if  she  had 
survived  beyond  her  period.  Her  finely  demure  and  sly  sense 
of  humor  would  have  seen  and  seized  upon  its  opportunities. 
Stark  moorland  life  had  not  encouraged  humor  in  the  Brontes, 
and  village  patronage  had  not  roused  in  Miss  Mitford  a  sense 
of  ironic  contrasts.  Yes,  Jane  Austen  would  have  done  it 
best. 

That  the  story  should  be  related  by  Mrs.  Braddle  gave  it 
extraordinary  flavor.  No  man  or  woman  of  his  own  class  could 
have  given  such  a  recounting,  or  revealed  so  many  facets  of  this 
jewel  of  entertainment.  He  and  those  like  him  could  have 
seen  the  thing  only  from  their  own  amused,  outraged,  bewil 
dered,  or  cynically  disgusted  point  of  view.  Mrs.  Braddle  saw 
it  as  the  villagers  saw  it  —  excited,  curious,  secretly  hopeful 
of  undue  lavishness  from  "a  chap  as  had  nivver  had  brass 
before  an'  wants  to  chuck  it  away  for  brag's  sake,"  or  somewhat 
alarmed  at  the  possible  neglecting  of  customs  and  privileges 


390  T.    TEMBAROM 

by  a  person  ignorant  of  memorial  benefactions.  She  saw  it 
as  the  servants  saw  it  —  secretly  disdainful,  outwardly  respect 
ful,  waiting  to  discover  whether  the  sacrifice  of  professional 
distinction  would  be  balanced  by  liberties  permitted  and  lavish- 
ness  of  remuneration  and  largess.  She  saw  it  also  from  her 
own  point  of  view  —  that  of  a  respectable  cottage  dweller 
whose  great-great-grandfather  had  been  born  in  a  black-and- 
white  timbered  house  in  a  green  lane,  and  who  knew  what 
were  "gentry  ways"  and  what  nature  of  being  could  never 
even  remotely  approach  the  assumption  of  them.  She  had 
seen  Tembarom  more  than  once,  and  summed  him  up  by  no 
means  ill-naturedly. 

"He's  not  such  a  bad-lookin'  chap.  He  is  na  short-legged 
or  turn-up-nosed,  an'  that's  summat.  He  con  stride  along, 
an'  he  looks  healthy  enow  for  aw  he's  thin.  A  thin  chap 
niwer  looks  as  common  as  a  fat  un.  If  he  wur  pudgy,  it  ud 
be  a  lot  more  agen  him." 

"  I  think,  perhaps,"  amiably  remarked  the  duke,  sipping 
his  beef  tea,  "that  you  had  better  not  call  him  a  'chap,' 
Braddle.  The  late  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  was  never  referred  to 
as  a  '  chap '  exactly,  was  he  ?  " 

Mrs.  Braddle  gave  vent  to  a  sort  of  internal-sounding  chuckle. 
She  had  not  meant  to  be  impertinent,  and  she  knew  her  charge 
was  aware  that  she  had  not,  and  that  he  was  neither  being 
lofty  or  severe  with  her. 

"  Eh,  I  'd  'a'  loiked  to  ha'  heard  somebody  do  it  when  he 
was  nigh,"  she  said.  "  Happen  I  'd  better  be  moindin'  ma  P's 
an'  Q's  a  bit  more.  But  that's  what  this  un  is,  yore  Grace. 
He 's  a  '  chap '  out  an'  out.  An'  theer  's  some  as  is  sayin'  he 's 
not  a  bad  sort  of  a  chap  either.  There  's  lots  o'  funny  stories 
about  him  i'  Temple  Barholm  village.  He  goes  in  to  th'  cottages 
now  an'  then,  an'  though  a  fool  could  see  he  does  na  know 
his  place,  nor  other  people's,  he 's  downreet  open-handed.  An' 
he  maks  foak  laugh.  He  took  a  lot  o'  New  York  papers  wi'  big 
pictures  in  'em  to  little  Tummas  Hibblethwaite.  An'  wot  does 
tha  think  he  did  one  rainy  day?  He  walks  in  to  the  owd 
Dibdens'  cottage,  an'  sits  down  betwixt  'em  as  they  sit  one 
each  side  o'  th'  f're,  an'  he  tells  'em  they've  got  to  cheer  him 


T.    TEMBAROM  291 

up  a  bit  becos  he's  got  nought  to  do.  An'  he  shows  'em  th' 
picter-papers,  too,  an'  tells  'em  about  New  York,  an'  he  ends 
up  wi'  singin'  'em  a  comic  song.  They  was  frightened  out 
o'  their  wits  at  first,  but  somehow  he  got  over  'em,  an'  made 
'em  laugh  their  owd  heads  nigh  off." 

Her  charge  laid  his  spoon  down,  and  his  shrewd,  lined  face 
assumed  a  new  expression  of  interest. 

"Did  he!  Did  he,  indeed!"  he  exclaimed.  "Good  Lord! 
what  an  exhilarating  person!  I  must  go  and  see  him.  Per 
haps  he'd  make  me  laugh  my  cowd  head  nigh  off.'  What  a 
sensation ! " 

There  was  really  immense  color  in  the  anecdotes  and  in  the 
side  views  accompanying  them ;  the  routing  out  of  her  obscurity 
of  the  isolated,  dependent  spinster  relative,  for  instance.  De 
licious  !  The  man  was  either  desperate  with  loneliness  or  he 
was  one  of  the  rough-diamond  benefactors  favored  by  novelists, 
in  which  latter  case  he  would  not  be  so  entertaining.  Pure 
self-interest  caused  the  Duke  of  Stone  quite  unreservedly  to 
hope  that  he  was  anguished  by  the  unaccustomedness  of  his 
surroundings,  and  was  ready  to  pour  himself  forth  to  any  one 
who  would  listen.  There  would  be  originality  in  such  a  situa 
tion,  and  one  could  draw  forth  revelations  worth  forming  an 
audience  to.  He  himself  had  thought  that  the  volte-face  such 
circumstances  demanded  would  surely  leave  a  man  staring  at 
things  foreign  enough  to  bore  him.  This,  indeed,  had  been 
one  of  his  cherished  theories;  but  the  only  man  he  had  ever 
encountered  who  had  become  a  sort  of  millionaire  between  one 
day  and  another  had  been  an  appalling  Yorkshire  man,  who 
had  had  some  extraordinary  luck  with  diamond-mines  in  South 
Africa,  and  he  had  been  simply  drunk  with  exhilaration  and 
the  delight  of  spending  money  with  both  hands,  while  he 
figuratively  slapped  on  the  back  persons  who  six  weeks  before 
would  have  kicked  him  for  doing  it. 

This  man  did  not  appear  to  be  excited.  The  duke  mentally 
rocked  with  gleeful  appreciation  of  certain  things  Mrs.  Braddle 
detailed.  She  gave,  of  course,  Burrill's  version  of  the  brief 
interview  outside  the  dining-room  door  when  Miss  Alicia's  status 
in  the  household  had  been  made  clear  to  him.  But  the  duke, 


292  T.   TEMBAROM 

being  a  man  endowed  with  a  subtle  sense  of  shades,  was  wholly 
enlightened  as  to  the  inner  meaning  of  BurrilPs  master. 

"  Now,  that  was  good/'  he  said  to  himself,  almost  chuckling. 
"By  the  Lord!  the  man  might  have  been  a  gentleman." 

When  to  all  this  was  added  the  story  of  the  friend  or  poor 
relative,  or  what  not,  who  was  supposed  to  be  "  not  quoite  reet 
i'  th'  yed,"  and  was  taken  care  of  like  a  prince,  in  complete 
isolation,  attended  by  a  valet,  visited  and  cheered  up  by  his 
benefactor,  he  felt  that  a  boon  had  indeed  been  bestowed  upon 
him.  It  was  a  nineteenth  century  "  Mysteries  of  Udolpho  "  in 
embryo,  though  too  greatly  diluted  by  the  fact  that  though  the 
stranger  was  seen  by  no  one,  the  new  Temple  Barholm  made 
no  secret  of  him. 

If  he  had  only  made  a  secret  of  him,  the  whole  thing  would 
have  been  complete.  There  was  of  course  in  the  situation  a 
discouraging  suggestion  that  Temple  Barholm  might  turn  out 
to  be  merely  the  ordinary  noble  character  bestowing  boons. 

"I  will  burn  a  little  candle  to  the  Virgin  and  offer  up 
prayers  that  he  may  not.  That  sort  of  thing  would  have  no 
cachet  whatever,  and  would  only  depress  me,"  thought  his  still 
sufficiently  sinful  Grace. 

"When,  Braddle,  do  you  think  I  shall  be  able  to  take  a 
drive  again  ?"  he  asked  his  nurse. 

Braddle  was  not  prepared  to  say  upon  her  own  responsibility, 
but  the  doctor  would  tell  him  when  he  came  in  that  afternoon. 

"  I  feel  astonishingly  well,  considering  the  sharpness  of  the 
attack,"  her  patient  said.  "  Our  little  talk  has  quite  stimulated 
me.  When  I  go  out," — there  was  a  gleam  in  the  eye  he  raised 
to  hers, — "  I  am  going  to  call  at  Temple  Barholm." 

"  I  knowed  tha  would,"  she  commented  with  maternal  famil 
iarity.  "  I  dunnot  believe  tha  could  keep  away." 

And  through  the  rest  of  the  morning,  as  he  sat  and  gazed 
into  the  fire,  she  observed  that  he  several  times  chuckled  gently 
and  rubbed  his  delicate,  chill,  swollen  knuckled  hands  together. 

A  few  weeks  later  there  were  some  warm  days,  and  his 
Grace  chose  to  go  out  in  his  pony  carriage.  Much  as  he  detested 
the  suggestion  of  "  the  aunt  in  the  Bath  chair,"  he  had  decided 
that  he  found  the  low,  informal  vehicle  more  entertaining  than 


T.    TEMBAROM  293 

a  more  imposing  one,  and  the  desperation  of  his  desire  to  be 
entertained  can  be  comprehended  only  by  those  who  have  known 
its  parallel.  If  he  was  not  in  some  way  amused,  he  found 
himself  whirling,  with  rheumatic  gout  and  seventy  years,  among 
recollections  of  vivid  pictures  better  hung  in  galleries  with 
closed  doors.  It  was  always  possible  to  stop  the  pony  carriage 
to  look  at  views  —  bits  of  landscape  caught  at  by  vision  through 
trees  or  under  their  spreading  branches,  or  at  the  end  of  little 
green-hedged  lanes  apparently  adorned  with  cottages,  or  farm 
houses  with  ricks  and  barn-yards  and  pig-pens  designed  for 
the  benefit  of  Morland  and  other  painters  of  rusticity.  He 
could  also  slacken  the  pony's  pace  and  draw  up  by  roadsides 
where  solitary  men  sat  by  piles  of  stone,  which  they  broke  at 
leisure  with  hammers  as  though  they  were  cracking  nuts.  He 
had  spent  many  an  agreeable  half-hour  in  talk  with  a  road- 
mender  who  could  be  led  into  conversation  and  was  left  elated 
by  an  extra  shilling.  As  in  years  long  past  he  had  sat  under 
chestnut-trees  in  the  Apennines  and  shared  the  black  bread  and 
sour  wine  of  a  peasant,  so  in  these  days  he  frequently  would 
have  been  glad  to  sit  under  a  hedge  and  eat  bread  and  cheese 
with  a  good  fellow  who  did  not  know  him  and  whose  summing 
up  of  the  domestic  habits  and  needs  of  "  th'  workin'  mon  "  or  the 
amiabilities  or  degeneracies  of  the  gentry  would  be  expressed, 
figuratively  speaking,  in  thoughts  and  words  of  one  syllable. 
The  pony,  however,  could  not  take  him  very  far  afield,  and  one 
could  not  lunch  on  the  grass  with  a  stone-breaker  well  within 
reach  of  one's  own  castle  without  an  air  of  eccentricity  which 
he  no  more  chose  to  assume  than  he  would  have  chosen  to 
wear  long  hair  and  a  flowing  necktie.  Also,  rheumatic  gout 
had  not  hovered  about  the  days  in  the  Apennines.  He  did  not, 
it  might  be  remarked,  desire  to  enter  into  conversation  with 
his  humble  fellow-man  from  altruistic  motives.  He  did  it  be 
cause  there  was  always  a  chance  more  or  less  that  he  would 
be  amused.  He  might  hear  of  little  tragedies  or  comedies, — 
he  much  preferred  the  comedies, —  and  he  often  learned  new 
words  or  phrases  of  dialect  interestingly  allied  to  pure  Anglo- 
Saxon.  When  this  last  occurred,  he  entered  them  in  a  note 
book  he  kept  in  his  library.  He  sometimes  pretended  to  him- 


294  T.   TEMBAEOM 

self  that  he  was  going  to  write  a  book  on  dialects ;  but  he  knew 
that  he  was  a  dilettante  sort  of  creature  and  would  really 
never  do  it.  The  pretense,  however,  was  a  sort  of  asset.  In 
dire  moments  during  rains  or  foggy  weather  when  he  felt 
twinges  and  had  read  till  his  head  ached,  he  had  wished  that 
he  had  not  eaten  all  his  cake  at  the  first  course  of  life's  feast, 
that  he  had  formed  a  habit  or  so  which  might  have  survived 
and  helped  him  to  eke  out  even  an  easy-chair  existence  through 
the  last  courses.  He  did  not  find  consolation  in  the  use  of  the 
palliative  adjective  as  applied  to  himself.  A  neatly  cynical 
sense  of  humor  prevented  it.  He  knew  he  had  always  been  an 
entirely  selfish  man  and  that  he  was  entirely  selfish  still,  and 
was  not  revoltingly  fretful  and  domineering  only  because  he 
was  constitutionally  unirritable. 

He  was,  however,  amiably  obstinate,  and  was  accustomed  to 
getting  his  own  way  in  most  things.  On  this  day  of  his  outing 
he  insisted  on  driving  himself  in  the  face  of  arguments  to 
the  contrary.  He  was  so  fixed  in  his  intention  that  his  daugh 
ters  and  Mrs.  Braddle  were  obliged  to  admit  themselves  over 
powered. 

"  Nonsense !  Nonsense !  "  he  protested  when  they  besought 
him  to  allow  himself  to  be  driven  by  a  groom.  "  The  pony  is 
a  fat  thing  only  suited  to  a  Bath  chair.  He  does  not  need 
driving.  He  does  n't  go  when  he  is  driven.  He  frequently  lies 
down  and  puts  his  cheek  on  his  hand  and  goes  to  sleep,  and 
I  am  obliged  to  wait  until  he  wakes  up." 

"But,  papa,  dear,"  Lady  Edith  said,  "your  poor  hands  are 
not  very  strong.  And  he  might  run  away  and  kill  you.  Please 
do  be  reasonable !  " 

"  My  dear  girl,"  he  answered,  "  if  he  runs,  I  shall  run  after 
him  and  kill  him  when  I  catch  him.  George,"  he  called  to 
the  groom  holding  the  plump  pony's  head,  "tell  her  ladyship 
what  this  little  beast's  name  is." 

"  The  Indolent  Apprentice,  your  Grace,"  the  groom  answered, 
touching  his  hat  and  suppressing  a  grin. 

"  I  called  him  that  a  month  ago,"  said  the  duke.  "  Hogarth 
would  have  depicted  all  sorts  of  evil  ends  for  him.  Three  weeks 
since,  when  I  was  in  bed  being  fed  by  Braddle  with  a  spoon,  I 


T.    TEMBAROM  295 

could  have  outrun  him  myself.  Let  George  follow  me  on  a 
horse  if  you  like,  but  he  must  keep  out  of  my  sight.  Half  a 
mile  behind  will  do." 

He  got  into  the  phaeton,  concealing  his  twinges  with  deter 
mination,  and  drove  down  the  avenue  with  a  fine  air,  sitting 
erect  and  smiling.  Indoor  existence  had  become  unendurable, 
and  the  spring  was  filling  the  woods. 

"  I  love  the  spring/'  he  murmured  to  himself.  "  I  am  sen 
timental  about  it.  I  love  sentimentality,  in  myself,  when  I  am 
quite  alone.  If  I  had  been  a  writing  person,  I  should  have 
made  verses  every  year  in  April  and  sent  them  to  magazines  — 
and  they  would  have  been  returned  to  me." 

The  Indolent  Apprentice  was,  it  is  true,  fat,  though  comely, 
and  he  was  also  entirely  deserving  of  his  name.  Like  his 
Grace  of  Stone,  however,  he  had  seen  other  and  livelier  days, 
and  now  and  then  he  was  beset  by  recollections.  He  was  still 
a  rather  high,  though  slow,  stepper  —  the  latter  from  fixed 
preference.  He  had  once  stepped  fast,  as  well  as  with  a  spirited 
gait.  During  his  master's  indisposition  he  had  stood  in  his 
loose  box  and  professed  such  harmlessness  that  he  had  not  been 
annoyed  by  being  taken  out  for  exercise  as  regularly  as  he  might 
have  been.  He  had  champed  his  oats  and  listened  to  the 
repartee  of  the  stable-boys,  and  he  had,  perhaps,  felt  the  coming 
of  the  spring  when  the  cuckoo  insisted  upon  it  with  thrilling 
mellowness  across  the  green  sweeps  of  the  park  land.  Some 
times  it  made  him  sentimental,  as  it  made  his  master,  sometimes 
it  made  him  stamp  his  small  hoofs  restlessly  in  his  straw  and 
want  to  go  out.  He  did  not  intend,  when  he  was  taken  out,  to 
emulate  the  Industrious  Apprentice  by  hastening  his  pace  un 
duly  and  raising  false  hopes  for  the  future,  but  he  sniffed  in 
the  air  the  moist  green  of  leafage  and  damp  moss,  massed 
with  yellow  primroses  cuddling  in  it  as  though  for  warmth, 
and  he  thought  of  other  fresh  scents  and  the  feel  of  the  road 
under  a  pony's  feet. 

Therefore,  when  he  found  himself  out  in  the  world  again, 
he  shook  his  head  now  and  then  and  even  tossed  it  with  the 
recurring  sensations  of  a  pony  who  was  a  mere  boy  and  still 
slight  in  the  waist. 


296  T.    TEMBAROM 

"  You  feel  it  too,  do  you  ?  "  said  the  duke.  "  I  won't  remind 
you  of  your  years." 

The  drive  from  Stone  Hover  to  the  village  of  Temple  Barholm 
was  an  easy  one,  of  many  charms  of  leaf -arched  lanes  and  green- 
edged  road.  The  duke  had  always  had  a  partiality  for  it,  and 
he  took  it  this  morning.  He  would  probably  have  taken  it 
in  any  case,  but  Mrs.  Braddle's  anecdotes  had  been  floating 
through  his  mind  when  he  set  forth  and  perhaps  inclined  him 
in  its  direction. 

The  groom  was  a  young  man  of  three  and  twenty,  and  he 
felt  the  spring  also.  The  horse  he  rode  was  a  handsome  animal, 
and  he  himself  was  not  devoid  of  a  healthy  young  man's  good 
looks.  He  knew  his  belted  livery  was  becoming  to  him,  and 
when  on  horseback  he  prided  himself  on  what  he  considered 
an  almost  military  bearing.  Sarah  Hibson,  farmer  Hibson's 
dimple-chinned  and  saucy-eyed  daughter,  had  been  "carryin' 
on  a  good  bit "  with  a  soldier  who  was  a  smart,  well-set-up,  impu 
dent  fellow,  and  it  was  the  manifest  duty  of  any  other  young 
fellow  who  had  considered  himself  to  be  "walking  out  with 
her"  to  look  after  his  charges.  His  Grace  had  been  most  par 
ticular  about  George's  keeping  far  enough  behind  him;  and  as 
half  a  mile  had  been  mentioned  as  near  enough,  certainly  one 
was  absolved  from  the  necessity  of  keeping  in  sight.  Why 
should  not  one  turn  into  the  lane  which  ended  at  Hibson's  farm 
yard,  and  drop  into  the  dairy,  and  "  have  it  out  wi'  Sarah  ?  " 

Dimpled  chins  and  saucy  eyes,  and  bare,  dimpled  arms  and 
hands  patting  butter  while  heads  are  tossed  in  coquettishly 
alluring  defiance,  made  even  "having  it  out"  an  attractive 
and  memory-obscuring  process.  Sarah  was  a  plump  and  spar 
kling  imp  of  prettiness,  and  knew  the  power  of  every  sly  glance 
and  every  dimple  and  every  golden  freckle  she  possessed. 
George  did  not  know  it  so  well,  and  in  ten  minutes  had  lost  his 
head  and  entirely  forgotten  even  the  half-mile  behind. 

He  was  lover-like,  he  was  masterful,  he  brought  the  spring 
with  him;  he  "carried  on,"  as.  Sarah  put  it,  until  he  had 
actually  out-distanced  the  soldier,  and  had  her  in  his  arms, 
kissing  her  as  she  laughed  and  prettily  struggled. 

"  Shame   o'   tha  face !     Shame   o'  tha  face,   George ! "   she 


T.    TEMBAROM  297 

scolded  and  dimpled  and  blushed.  "Wilt  tha  be  done  now? 
Wilt  tha  be  done?  I  '11  call  mother." 

And  at  that  very  moment  mother  came  without  being  called, 
running,  red  of  face,  heavy-footed,  and  panting,  with  her  cap 
all  on  one  side. 

"  Th'  duke 's  run  away !  TV  duke 's  run  away ! "  she 
shouted.  "Jo  seed  him.  Pony  got  freetened  at  summat  — 
an'  what  art  doin'  here,  George  Bind?  Get  o'  thy  horse  an' 
gallop.  If  he  's  killed,  tha  'rt  a  ruined  man." 

There  was  an  odd  turn  of  chance  in  it,  the  duke  thought  after 
ward.  Though  friskier  than  usual,  the  Indolent  Apprentice 
had  behaved  perfectly  well  until  they  neared  the  gates  of 
Temple  Barholm,  which  chanced  to  be  open  because  a  cart  had 
just  passed  through.  And  it  was  not  the  cart's  fault,  for  the 
Indolent  Apprentice  regarded  it  with  friendly  interest.  It  hap 
pened,  however,  that  perhaps  being  absorbed  in  the  cart,  which 
might  have  been  drawn  by  a  friend  or  even  a  distant  relative, 
the  Indolent  Apprentice  was  horribly  startled  by  a  large  rabbit 
which  leaped  out  of  the  hedge  almost  under  his  nose,  and, 
worse  still,  was  followed  the  next  instant  by  another  rabbit  even 
larger  and  more  sudden  and  unexpected  in  its  movements. 
The  Indolent  Apprentice  snorted,  pawed,  whirled,  dashed 
through  the  open  gateway, —  the  duke's  hands  were  even  less 
strong  than  his  daughter  had  thought, —  and  galloped,  head  in 
air  and  bit  between  teeth,  up  the  avenue,  the  low  carriage  rock 
ing  from  side  to  side. 

"  Damn !  Damn ! "  cried  the  duke,  rocking  also.  "  Oh, 
damn !  I  shall  be  killed  in  a  runaway  perambulator !  " 

And  ridiculous  as  it  was,  things  surged  through  his  brain, 
and  once,  though  he  laughed  at  himself  bitterly  afterward,  he 
gasped  "  Ah,  Heloi'se ; "  as  he  almost  whirled  over  a  jagged 
tree-stump;  gallop  and  gallop  and  gallop,  off  the  road  and 
through  trees,  and  back  again  on  to  the  sward,  and  gallop  and 
gallop  and  jerk  and  jolt  and  jerk,  and  he  was  nearing  the 
house,  and  a  long-legged  young  man  ran  down  the  steps,  push 
ing  aside  footmen,  and  was  ahead  of  the  drunken  little  beast 
of  a  pony,  and  caught  him  just  as  the  phaeton  overturned  and 


298  T.    TEMBAEOM 

shot  his  grace  safely  though  not  comfortably  in  a  heap  upon 
the  grass. 

It  was  of  course  no  trifle  of  a  shock,  but  its  victim's  sensa 
tions  gave  him  strong  reason  to  hope,  as  he  rolled  over,  that 
no  bones  were  broken.  The  following  servants  were  on  the 
spot  almost  at  once,  and  took  the  pony's  head. 

The  young  man  helped  the  duke  to  his  feet  and  dusted  him 
with  masterly  dexterity.  He  did  not  know  he  was  dusting  a 
duke,  and  he  would  not  have  cared  if  he  had. 

"  Hello,"  he  said,  "  you  're  not  hurt.  I  can  see  that. 
Thank  the  Lord !  I  don't  believe  you  've  got  a  scratch." 

His  grace  felt  a  shade  shaky,  and  he  was  slightly  pale,  but 
he  smiled  in  a  way  which  had  been  celebrated  forty  years 
earlier,  and  the  charm  of  which  had  survived  even  rheumatic 
gout. 

"  Thank  you.  I  'm  not  hurt  in  the  least.  I  am  the  Duke 
of  Stone.  This  is  n't  really  a  call.  It  is  n't  my  custom  to 
arrive  in  this  way.  May  I  address  you  as  my  preserver,  Mr. 
Temple  Barholm?" 


CHAPTER  XXIV 


*y?  PON  the  terrace,  when  he  was  led  up  the  steps, 
stood  a  most  perfect  little  elderly  lady  in  a 
state  of  agitation  much  greater  than  his  own 
or  his  rescuer's.     It  was  an  agitation  as  perfect 
in  its  femininity  as  she  herself  was.     It  ex 
pressed  its  kind  tremors  in  the  fashion  which 
belonged  to  the  puce  silk  dress  and  fine  bits  of 
collar  and  undersleeve  the  belated  gracefulness 
of  which  caused  her  to  present  herself  to  him 
rather  as  a  figure  cut  neatly  from  a  book  of  the  styles  he  had 
admired  in  his  young  manhood.     It  was  of  course  Miss  Alicia, 
who  having,  with  Tembarom,  seen  the  galloping  pony  from  a 
window,  had  followed  him  when  he  darted  from  the  room. 
She  came  forward,  looking  pale  with  charming  solicitude. 
"  I  do  so  hope  you  are  not  hurt,"  she  exclaimed.     "  It  really 
seemed  that  only  divine  Providence  could  prevent  a  terrible 
accident/' 

"  I  am  afraid  that  it  was  more  grotesque  than  terrible,"  he 
answered  a  shade  breathlessly. 

"  Let  me  make  you  acquainted  with  the  Duke  of  Stone,  Miss 
Alicia,"  Tembarom  said  in  the  formula  of  Mrs.  Bowse's  board 
ers  on  state  occasions  of  introduction.  "Duke,  let  me  make 
you  acquainted,  sir,  with  my  —  relation  —  Miss  Alicia  Temple 
Barholm." 

The  duke's  bow  had  a  remote  suggestion  of  almost  including 
a  kissed  hand  in  its  gallant  courtesy.  Not,  however,  that 
Early  Victorian  ladies  had  been  accustomed  to  the  kissing 
of  hands;  but  at  the  period  when  he  had  best  known  the  type 
he  had  daily  bent  over  white  fingers  in  Continental  capitals. 

299 


300  T.    TEMBAROM 

"A  glass  of  wine,"  Miss  Alicia  implored.  "Pray  let 
me  give  you  a  glass  of  wine.  I  am  sure  you  need  it  very 
much." 

He  was  taken  into  the  library  and  made  to  sit  in  a  most 
comfortable  easy-chair.  Miss  Alicia  fluttered  about  him  with 
sympathy  still  delicately  tinged  with  alarm.  How  long,  how 
long,  it  had  been  since  he  had  been  fluttered  over!  Nearly 
forty  years.  Ladies  did  not  flutter  now,  and  he  remembered 
that  it  was  no  longer  the  fashion  to  call  them  "  ladies."  Only 
the  lower-middle  classes  spoke  of  "ladies."  But  he  found 
himself  mentally  using  the  word  again  as  he  watched  Miss 
Alicia. 

It  had  been  "  ladies "  who  had  fluttered  and  been  anxious 
about  a  man  in  this  quite  pretty  way. 

He  could  scarcely  remove  his  eyes  from  her  as  he  sipped 
his  wine.  She  felt  his  escape  "providential,"  and  murmured 
such  devout  little  phrases  concerning  it  that  he  was  almost 
consoled  for  the  grotesque  inward  vision  of  himself  as  an  aged 
peer  of  the  realm  tumbling  out  of  a  baby-carriage  and  rolled 
over  on  the  grass  at  the  feet  of  a  man  on  whom  later  he  had 
meant  to  make,  in  proper  state,  a  formal  call.  She  put  her 
hand  to  her  side,  smiling  half  apologetically. 

"  My  heart  beats  quite  fast  yet,"  she  said.  Whereupon  a 
quaintly  novel  thing  took  place,  at  the  sight  of  which  the  duke 
barely  escaped  opening  his  eyes  very  wide  indeed.  The 
American  Temple  Barholm  put  his  arm  about  her  in  the  most 
casual  and  informally  accustomed  way,  and  led  her  to  a  chair, 
and  put  her  in  it,  so  to  speak. 

"  Say,"  he  announced  with  affectionate  authority,  "  you  sit 
down  right  away.  It's  you  that  needs  a  glass  of  wine,  and 
I  'm  going  to  give  it  to  you." 

The  relations  between  the  two  were  evidently  on  a  basis  not 
common  in  England  even  among  people  who  were  attached  to 
one  another.  There  was  a  spontaneous,  every-day  air  of  nat 
ural,  protective  petting  about  it,  as  though  the  fellow  was  fond 
of  her  in  his  crude  fashion,  and  meant  to  take  care  of  her.  He 
was  fond  of  her,  and  the  duke  perceived  it  with  elation,  and 
also  understood.  He  might  be  the  ordinary  bestower  of  boons, 


{/     t;-:  '</ 

'" 


Say,"  he  announced  with  affectionate  authority,  "you  sit  down, 
right  away  " 


T.   TEMBAEOM  301 

but  the  protective  curve  of  his  arm  included  other  things.  In 
the  blank  dullness  of  his  unaccustomed  splendors  he  had  some 
how  encountered  this  fine,  delicately  preserved  little  relic  of 
other  days,  and  had  seized  on  her  and  made  her  his  own. 

"I  have  not  seen  anything  as  delightful  as  Miss  Temple 
Barholm  for  many  a  year,"  the  duke  said  when  Miss  Alicia  was 
called  from  the  room  and  left  them  together. 

"  Ain't  she  great  ?  "  was  Tembarom's  reply.  "  She 's  just 
great." 

"  It  ?s  an  exquisite  survival  of  type,"  said  the  duke.  "  She 
belongs  to  my  time,  not  yours,"  he  added,  realizing  that  "  sur 
vival  of  type  "  might  not  clearly  convey  itself. 

"Well,  she  belongs  to  mine  now,"  answered  Tembarom.  "I 
wouldn't  lose  her  for  a  farm." 

"  The  voice,  the  phrases,  the  carriage  might  survive, —  they 
do  in  remote  neighborhoods,  I  suppose  —  but  the  dress  is  quite 
delightfully  incredible.  It  is  a  work  of  art,"  the  duke  went 
on.  She  had  seemed  too  good  to  be  true.  Her  clothes,  how 
ever,  had  certainly  not  been  dug  out  of  a  wardrobe  of  forty 
years  ago. 

"When  I  went  to  talk  to  the  head  woman  in  the  shop  in 
Bond  Street  I  fixed  it  with  'em  hard  and  fast  that  she  was 
not  to  spoil  her.  They  were  to  keep  her  like  she  was.  She  'a 
like  her  little  cap,  you  know,  and  her  little  mantles  and  tip 
pets.  She's  like  them,"  exclaimed  Tembarom. 

Did  he  see  that  ?  What  an  odd  feature  in  a  man  of  his  sort ! 
And  how  thoroughly  New  Yorkish  it  was  that  he  should  march 
into  a  fashionable  shop  and  see  that  he  got  what  he  wanted 
and  the  worth  of  his  money!  There  had  been  no  rashness  in 
the  hope  that  the  unexplored  treasure  might  be  a  rich  one. 
The  man's  simplicity  was  an  actual  complexity.  He  had  a 
boyish  eye  and  a  grin,  but  there  was  a  business-like  line  about 
his  mouth  which  was  strong  enough  to  have  been  hard  if  it 
had  not  been  good-natured. 

"  That  was  confoundedly  clever  of  you,"  his  grace  com 
mented  heartily — "confoundedly.  I  should  never  have  had 
the  wit  to  think  of  it  myself,  or  the  courage  to  do  it  if  I  had. 
Shop-women  make  me  shy." 


302  T.    TEMBAEOM 

"  Oh,  well,  I  just  put  it  up  to  them,"  Tembarom  answered 
easily. 

"  I  believe,"  cautiously  translated  the  duke,  "  that  you  mean 
that  you  made  them  feel  that  they  alone  were  responsible." 

"Yes,  I  do,"  assented  Tembarom,  the  grin  slightly  in 
evidence.  "  Put  it  up  to  them 's  the  short  way  of  saying 
it." 

"  Would  you  mind  my  writing  that  down  ?  "  said  the  duke. 
"I  have  a  fad  for  dialects  and  new  phrases."  He  hastily 
scribbled  the  words  in  a  tablet  that  he  took  from  his  pocket. 
"  Do  you  like  living  in  England  ?  "  he  asked  in  course  of  time. 

"  I  should  like  it  if  I  'd  been  born  here,"  was  the  answer. 

"I  see,  I  see." 

"If  it  had  not  been  for  finding  Miss  Alicia,  and  that  I 
made  a  promise  I  'd  stay  for  a  year,  anyhow,  I  'd  have  broken 
loose  at  the  end  of  the  first  week  and  worked  my  passage  back 
if  I  hadn't  had  enough  in  my  clothes  to  pay  for  it."  He 
laughed,  but  it  was  not  real  laughter.  There  was  a  thing  be 
hind  it.  The  situation  was  more  edifying  than  one  could  have 
hoped.  "  I  made  a  promise,  and  I  'm  going  to  stick  it  out," 
he  said. 

He  was  going  to  stick  it  out  because  he  had  promised  to 
endure  for  a  year  Temple  Barholm  and  an  income  of  seventy 
thousand  pounds !  The  duke  gazed  at  him  as  at  a  fond  dream 
realized. 

"  I  've  nothing  to  do,"  Tembarom  added. 

"Neither  have  I,"  replied  the  Duke  of  Stone. 

"  But  you  're  used  to  it,  and  I  'm  not.  I  'm  used  to  work 
ing  'steen  hours  a  day,  and  dropping  into  bed  as  tired  as  a 
dog,  but  ready  to  sleep  like  one  and  get  up  rested." 

"I  used  to  play  twenty  hours  a  day  once,"  answered  the 
duke,  "but  I  didn't  get  up  rested.  That's  probably  why  I 
have  gout  and  rheumatism  combined.  Tell  me  how  you 
worked,  and  I  will  tell  you  how  I  played." 

It  was  worth  while  taking  this  tone  with  him.  It  had  been 
worth  while  taking  it  with  the  chestnut-gathering  peasants  in 
the  Apennines,  sometimes  even  with  a  stone-breaker  by  an 
English  roadside.  And  this  one  was  of  a  type  more  unique 


T.    TEMBAROM  303 

and  distinctive  than  any  other  —  a  fellow  who,  with  the  blood 
of  Saxon  kings  and  Norman  nobles  in  his  veins,  had  known 
nothing  but  the  street  life  of  the  crudest  city  in  the  world, 
who  spoke  a  sort  of  argot,  who  knew  no  parallels  of  the  things 
which  surrounded  him  in  the  ancient  home  he  had  inherited 
and  in  which  he  stood  apart,  a  sort  of  semi-sophisticated  savage. 
The  duke  applied  himself  with  grace  and  finished  ability  to 
drawing  him  out.  The  questions  he  asked  were  all  seemingly 
those  of  a  man  of  the  world  charmingly  interested  in  the  su 
perior  knowledge  of  a  foreigner  of  varied  experience.  His 
method  was  one  which  engaged  the  interest  of  Tembarom  him 
self.  He  did  not  know  that  he  was  not  only  questioned,  but, 
so  to  speak,  delicately  cross-examined  and  that  before  the  end 
of  the  interview  the  Duke  of  Stone  knew  more  of  him,  his  past 
existence  and  present  sentiments,  than  even  Miss  Alicia  knew 
after  their  long  and  intimate  evening  talks.  The  duke,  how 
ever,  had  the  advantage  of  being  a  man  and  of  cherishing  vivid 
recollections  of  the  days  of  his  youth,  which,  unlike  as  it  had 
been  to  that  of  Tembarom,  furnished  a  degree  of  solid  founda 
tion  upon  which  go  to  build  conjecture. 

"  A  young  man  of  his  age,"  his  grace  reflected  astutely,  "  has 
always  just  fallen  out  of  love,  is  falling  into  it,  or  desires 
vaguely  to  do  so.  Ten  years  later  there  would  perhaps  be 
blank  spaces,  lean  years  during  which  he  was  not  in  love  at  all; 
but  at  his  particular  period  there  must  be  a  young  woman 
somewhere.  I  wonder  if  she  is  employed  in  one  of  the  depart 
ment  stores  he  spoke  of,  and  how  soon  he  hopes  to  present  her 
to  us.  His  conversation  has  revealed  so  far,  to  use  his  own. 
rich  simile,  '  neither  hide  nor  hair '  of  her." 

On  his  own  part,  he  was  as  ready  to  answer  questions  as  to  ask 
them.  In  fact,  he  led  Tembarom  on  to  asking. 

"  I  will  tell  you  how  I  played  "  had  been  meant.  He  made 
a  human  document  of  the  history  he  enlarged,  he  brilliantly 
diverged,  he  included,  he  made  pictures,  and  found  Tembarom's 
point  of  view  or  lack  of  it  gave  spice  and  humor  to  relations 
he  had  thought  himself  tired  of.  To  tell  familiar  anecdotes  of 
courts  and  kings  to  a  man  who  had  never  quite  believed  that 
such  things  were  realities,  who  almost  found  them  humorous 


304  T.    TEMBAEOM 

when  they  were  casually  spoken  of,  was  edification  indeed. 
The  novel  charm  lay  in  the  fact  that  his  class  in  his  country 
did  not  include  them  as  possibilities.  Peasants  in  other  coun 
tries,  plowmen,  shopkeepers,  laborers  in  England  —  all  these 
at  least  they  knew  of,  and  counted  them  in  as  factors  in  the 
lives  of  the  rich  and  great;  but  this  dear  young  man  —  ! 

"What's  a  crown  like?  I'd  like  to  see  one.  How  much 
do  you  guess  such  a  thing  would  cost  —  in  dollars  ?  " 

"  Did  not  Miss  Temple  Barholm  take  you  to  see  the  regalia 
in  the  Tower  of  London?  I  am  quite  shocked,"  said  the  duke. 
He  was,  in  fact,  a  trifle  disappointed.  With  the  puce  dress 
and  undersleeves  and  little  fringes  she  ought  certainly  to  have 
rushed  with  her  pupil  to  that  seat  of  historical  instruction  on 
their  first  morning  in  London,  immediately  after  breakfasting 
on  toast  and  bacon  and  marmalade  and  eggs. 

"  She  meant  me  to  go,  but  somehow  it  was  put  off.  She 
almost  cried  on  our  journey  home  when  she  suddenly  remem 
bered  that  we  'd  forgotten  it,  after  all." 

"  I  am  sure  she  said  it  was  a  wasted  opportunity,"  suggested 
his  grace. 

"  Yes,  that  was  what  hit  her  so  hard.  She  'd  never  been  to 
London  before,  and  you  couldn't  make  her  believe  she  could 
ever  get  there  again,  and  she  said  it  was  ungrateful  to  Provi 
dence  to  waste  an  opportunity.  She 's  always  mighty  anxious 
to  be  grateful  to  Providence,  bless  her ! " 

"  She  regards  you  as  Providence,"  remarked  the  duke,  en 
raptured.  With  a  touch  here  and  there,  the  touch  of  a  mas 
ter,  he  had  gathered  the  whole  little  story  of  Miss  Alicia,  and 
had  found  it  of  a  whimsical  exquisiteness  and  humor. 

"  She 's  a  •  lot  too  good  to  me,"  answered  Tembarom.  "  I 
guess  women  as  nice  as  her  are  always  a  lot  too  good  to  men. 
She's  a  kind  of  little  old  angel.  What  makes  me  mad  is  to 
think  of  the  fellows  that  did  n't  get  busy  and  marry  her  thirty- 
five  years  ago." 

"Were  there  —  er  —  many  of  'em?"  the  duke  inquired. 

"Thousands  of  'em,  though  most  of  'em  never  saw  her.  I 
suppose  you  never  saw  her  then.  If  you  had,  you  might  have 
done  it." 


T.    TEMBAROM  305 

The  duke,  sitting  with  an  elbow  on  each  arm  of  his  chair, 
put  the  tips  of  his  fine,  gouty  fingers  together  and  smiled  with 
a  far-reaching  inclusion  of  possibilities. 

"  So  I  might,"  he  said ;  "so  I  might.  My  loss  entirely  — 
my  abominable  loss." 

They  had  reached  this  point  of  the  argument  when  the  car 
riage  from  Stone  Hover  arrived.  It  was  a  stately  barouche 
the  coachman  and  footman  of  which  equally  with  its  big  horses 
seemed  to  have  hastened  to  an  extent  which  suggested  almost 
panting  breathlessness.  It  contained  Lady  Edith  and  Lady 
Celia,  both  pale,  and  greatly  agitated  by  the  news  which  had 
brought  them  horrified  from  Stone  Hover  without  a  moment's 
delay. 

They  both  ascended  in  haste  and  swept  in  such  alarmed 
anxiety  up  the  terrace  steps  and  through  the  hall  to  their 
father's  side  that  they  had  barely  a  polite  gasp  for  Miss  Alicia 
and  scarcely  saw  Tembarom  at  all. 

"  Dear  Papa ! "  they  cried  when  he  revealed  himself  in  his 
chair  in  the  library  intact  and  smiling.  "  How  wicked  of  you, 
dear !  How  you  have  frightened  us !  " 

"  I  begged  you  to  be  good,  dearest,"  said  Lady  Edith,  almost 
in  tears.  "  Where  was  George  ?  You  must  dismiss  him  at  once. 
Really  —  really  — " 

"  He  was  half  a  mile  away,  obeying  my  orders,"  said  the 
duke.  "A  groom  cannot  be  dismissed  for  obeying  orders.  It 
is  the  pony  who  must  be  dismissed,  to  my  great  regret;  or  else 
we  must  overfeed  him  until  he  is  even  fatter  than  he  is  and 
cannot  run  away." 

Were  his  arms  and  legs  and  his  ribs  and  collar-bones  and 
head  quite  right?  Was  he  sure  that  he  had  not  received  any 
internal  injury  when  he  fell  out  of  the  pony-carriage?  They 
could  scarcely  be  convinced,  and  as  they  hung  over  and  stroked 
and  patted  him,  Tembarom  stood  aside  and  watched  them  with 
interest.  They  were  the  girls  he 'had  to  please  Ann  by  "get 
ting  next  to,"  giving  himself  a  chance  to  fall  in  love  with  them, 
so  that  she  'd  know  whether  they  were  his  kind  or  not.  They 
were  nice-looking,  and  had  a  way  of  speaking  that  sounded 
rather  swell,  but  they  weren't  ace  high  to  a  little  slim,  red- 


306  T.    TEMBAROM 

headed  thing  that  looked  at  you  like  a  baby  and  pulled  your 
heart  up  into  your  throat. 

"  Don't  poke  me  any  more,  dear  children.  I  am  quite,  quite 
sound,"  he  heard  the  duke  say.  "  In  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  you 
behold  the  preserver  of  your  parent.  Filial  piety  is  making 
you  behave  with  shocking  ingratitude." 

They  turned  to  Tembarom  at  once  with  a  pretty  outburst  of 
apologies  and  thanks.  Lady  Celia  wasn't,  it  is  true,  "a 
looker/'  with  her  narrow  shoulders  and  rather  long  nose,  but 
she  had  an  air  of  breeding,  and  the  charming  color  of  which 
Palliser  had  spoken,  returning  to  Lady  Edith's  cheeks,  illumi 
nated  her  greatly. 

They  both  were  very  polite  and  made  many  agreeably  grate 
ful  speeches,  but  in  the  eyes  of  both  there  lurked  a  shade  of 
anxiety  which  they  hoped  to  be  able  to  conceal.  Their  father 
watched  them  with  a  wicked  pleasure.  He  realized  clearly 
their  well-behaved  desire  to  do  and  say  exactly  the  right  thing 
and  bear  themselves  in  exactly  the  right  manner,  and  also  their 
awful  uncertainty  before  an  entirely  unknown  quantity.  Al 
most  any  other  kind  of  young  man  suddenly  uplifted  by  strange 
fortune  they  might  have  known  some  parallel  for,  but  a  news 
boy  of  New  York!  All  the  New  Yorkers  they  had  met  or 
heard  of  had  been  so  rich  and  grand  as  to  make  them  feel 
themselves,  by  contrast,  mere  country  paupers,  quite  shivering 
with  poverty  and  huddling  for  protection  in  their  barely  clean 
rags,  so  what  was  there  to  go  on?  But  how  dreadful  not  to  be 
quite  right,  precisely  right,  in  one's  approach  —  quite  familiar 
enough,  and  yet  not  a  shade  too  familiar,  which  of  course  would 
appear  condescending!  And  be  it  said  the  delicacy  of  the  sit 
uation  was  added  to  by  the  fact  that  they  had  heard  something 
of  Captain  Palliser's  extraordinary  little  story  about  his  deter 
mination  to  know  "  ladies."  Really,  if  Willocks  the  butcher's 
boy  had  inherited  Temple  Barholm,  it  would  have  been  easier 
to  know  where  one  stood  in  the  matter  of  being  civil  and  agree 
able  to  him.  First  Lady  Edith,  made  perhaps  bold  by  the 
suggestion  of  physical  advantage  bestowed  by  the  color,  talked 
to  him  to  the  very  best  of  her  ability;  and  when  she  felt  herself 
fearfully  flagging,  Lady  Celia  took  him  up  and  did  her  very 


T.    TEMBAEOM  307 

well-conducted  best.  Neither  she  nor  her  sister  were  brilliant 
talkers  at  any  time,  and  limited  by  the  absence  of  any  common 
familiar  topic,  effort  was  necessary.  The  neighborhood  he  did 
not  know;  London  he  was  barely  aware  of;  social  functions 
it  would  be  an  impertinence  to  bring  in;  games  he  did  not 
play;  sport  he  had  scarcely  heard  of.  You  were  confined  to 
America,  and  if  you  knew  next  to  nothing  of  American  life, 
there  you  were. 

Tembarom  saw  it  all, —  he  was  sharp  enough  for  that, —  and 
his  habit  of  being  jocular  and  wholly  unashamed  saved  him 
from  the  misery  of  awkwardness  that  Willocks  would  have  been 
sure  to  have  writhed  under.  His  casual  frankness,  however, 
for  a  moment  embarrassed  Lady  Edith  to  the  bitterest  ex 
tremity.  When  you  are  trying  your  utmost  to  make  a  queer 
person  oblivious  to  the  fact  that  his  world  is  one  unknown  to 
you,  it  is  difficult  to  know  where  do  you  stand  when  he  says: 

"It's  mighty  hard  to  talk  to  a  man  who  doesn't  know  a 
thing  that  belongs  to  the  kind  of  world  you've  spent  your  life 
in,  ain't  it  ?  But  don't  you  mind  me  a  minute.  I  'm  glad  to 
be  talked  to  anyhow  by  people  like  you.  When  I  don't  catch 
on,  I  '11  just  ask.  No  man  was  ever  electrocuted  for  not  know 
ing,  and  that 's  just  where  I  am.  I  don't  know,  and  I  'm  glad 
to  be  told.  Now,  there 's  one  thing.  Burrill  said  '  Your 
Ladyship  '  to  you,  I  heard  him.  Ought  I  to  say  it,  er  ought  n't 
I?" 

"  Oh,  no,"  she  answered,  but  somehow  without  distaste  in  the 
momentary  stare  he  had  startled  her  into ;  "  Burrill  is  — " 

"  He 's  a  servant,"  he  aided  encouragingly.  "  Well,  I  've 
never  been  a  butler,  but  I've  been  somebody's  servant  all  my 
life,  and  mighty  glad  of  the  chance.  This  is  the  first  time 
I  've  been  out  of  a  job." 

What  nice  teeth  he  had!  What  a  queer,  candid,  unresentful 
creature!  What  a  good  sort  of  smile!  And  how  odd  that  it 
was  he  who  was  putting  her  more  at  her  ease  by  the  mere  way 
in  which  he  was  saying  this  almost  alarming  thing!  By  the 
time  he  had  ended,  it  was  not  alarming  at  all,  and  she  had 
caught  her  breath  again. 

She  was  actually  sorry  when  the  door  opened  and  Lady  Joan 


308  T.    TEMBAROM 

Fayre  came  in,  followed  almost  immediately  by  Lady  Mallowe 
and  Captain  Balliser,  who  appeared  to  have  just  returned  from 
a  walk  and  heard  the  news. 

Lady  Mallowe  was  most  sympathetic.  Why  not,  indeed? 
The  Duke  of  Stone  was  a  delightful,  cynical  creature,  and 
Stone  Hover  was,  despite  its  ducal  poverty,  a  desirable  place  to 
be  invited  to,  if  you  could  manage  it.  Her  ladyship's  method 
of  fluttering  was  not  like  Miss  Alicia's,  its  character  being 
wholly  modern;  but  she  fluttered,  nevertheless.  The  duke, 
who  knew  all  about  her,  received  her  amiabilities  with  apprecia 
tive  smiles,  but  it  was  the  splendidly  handsome,  hungry-eyed 
young  woman  with  the  line  between  her  black  brows  who  en 
gaged  his  attention.  On  the  alert,  as  he  always  was,  for  a 
situation,  he  detected  one  at  once  when  he  saw  his  American 
address  her.  She  did  not  address  him,  and  scarcely  deigned  a 
reply  when  he  spoke  to  her.  When  he  spoke  to  others,  she 
conducted  herself  as  though  he  were  not  in  the  room,  so  ob 
viously  did  she  choose  to  ignore  his  existence.  Such  a  bearing 
toward  one's  host  had  indeed  the  charm  of  being  an  interesting 
novelty.  And  what  a  beauty  she  was,  with  her  lovely,  ferocious 
eyes  and  the  small,  black  head  poised  on  the  exquisite  long 
throat,  which  was  on  the  verge  of  becoming  a  trifle  too  thin ! 
Then  as  in  a  flash  he  recalled  between  one  breath  and  another 
the  quite  fiendish  episode  of  poor  Jem  Temple  Barholm  —  and 
she  was  the  girl ! 

Then  he  became  almost  excited  in  his  interest.  He  saw  it 
all.  As  he  had  himself  argued  must  be  the  case,  this  poor 
fellow  was  in  love.  But  it  was  not  with  a  lady  in  the  New 
York  department  stores ;  it  was  with  a  young  woman  who  would 
evidently  disdain  to  wipe  her  feet  upon  him.  How  thrilling! 
As  Lady  Mallowe  and  Palliser  and  the  others  chattered,  he 
watched  him,  observing  his  manner.  He  stood  the  handsome 
creature's  steadily  persistent  rudeness  very  well;  he  made  no 
effort  to  push  into  the  talk  when  she  coolly  held  him  out  of  it. 
He  waited  without  external  uneasiness  or  spasmodic  smiles. 
If  he  could  do  that  despite  the  inevitable  fact  that  he  must  feel 
his  position  uncomfortable,  he  was  possessed  of  fiber.  That 
alone  would  make  him  worth  cultivating.  And  if  there  were 


T.    TEMBAROM  309 

persons  who  were  to  be  made  uncomfortable,  why  not  cut  in 
and  circumvent  the  beauty  somewhat  and  give  her  a  trifle  of 
unease?  It  was  with  the  light  and  adroit  touch  of  accus- 
tomedness  to  all  orders  of  little  situations  that  his  grace  took 
the  matter  in  hand,  with  a  shade,  also,  of  amiable  malice.  He 
drew  Tembarom  adroitly  into  the  center  of  things;  he  knew 
how  to  lead  him  to  make  easily  the  odd,  frank  remarks  which 
were  sufficiently  novel  to  suggest  that  he  was  actually  entertain 
ing.  He  beautifully  edged  Lady  Joan  out  of  her  position. 
She  could  not  behave  ill  to  him,  he  was  far  too  old,  he  said  to 
himself,  leaving  out  the  fact  that  a  Duke  of  Stone  is  a  too  re 
spectable  personage  to  be  quite  waved  aside. 

Tembarom  began  to  enjoy  himself  a  little  more.  Lady  Celia 
and  Lady  Edith  began  to  enjoy  themselves  a  little  more  also. 
Lady  Mallowe  was  filled  with  admiring  delight.  Captain  Pal- 
liser  took  in  the  situation,  and  asked  himself  questions  about 
it.  On  her  part,  Miss  Alicia  was  restored  to  the  happiness  any 
lack  of  appreciation  of  her  "dear  boy"  touchingly  disturbed. 
In  circumstances  such  as  these  he  appeared  to  the  advantage 
which  in  a  brief  period  would  surely  reveal  his  wonderful  quali 
ties.  She  clung  so  to  his  "  wonderful  qualities  "  because  in  all 
the  three-volumed  novels  of  her  youth  the  hero,  debarred  from 
early  advantages  and  raised  by  the  turn  of  fortune's  wheel  to 
splendor,  was  transformed  at  once  into  a  being  of  the  highest 
accomplishments  and  the  most  polished  breeding,  and  ended  in 
the  third  volume  a  creature  before  whom  emperors  paled.  And 
how  more  than  charmingly  cordial  his  grace's  manner  was 
when  he  left  them ! 

"To-morrow,"  he  said,  "if  my  daughters  do  not  discover 
that  I  have  injured  some  more  than  vital  organ,  I  shall  call 
to  proffer  my  thanks  with  the  most  immense  formality.  I  shall 
get  out  of  the  carriage  in  the  manner  customary  in  respectable 
neighborhoods,  not  roll  out  at  your  feet.  Afterward  you  will, 
I  hope,  come  and  dine  with  us.  I  am  devoured  by  a  desire  to 
become  more  familiar  with  The  Earth." 


CHAPTER  XXV 


T  was  Lady  Mallowe  who  perceived  the  moment 
when  he  became  the  fashion.  The  Duke  of  Stone 
called  with  the  immense  formality  he  had  de 
scribed,  and  his  visit  was  neither  brief  nor  dull. 
A  little  later  Tembarom  with  his  guests  dined  at 
Stone  Hover,  and  the  dinner  was  further  removed 
from  dullness  than  any  one  of  numerous  past 
dinners  always  noted  for  being  the  most  agree 
able  the  neighborhood  afforded.  The  duke  man 
aged  his  guest  as  an  impresario  might  have  man 
aged  his  tenor,  though  this  was  done  with  subtly 
concealed  methods.  He  had  indeed  a  novelty  to  offer  which  had 
been  discussed  with  much  uncertainty  of  point  of  view.  He 
presented  it  to  an  only  languidly  entertained  neighborhood  as  a 
trouvaille  of  his  own  choice.  Here  was  drama,  here  was  atmos 
phere,  here  was  charm  verging  in  its  character  upon  the  oc 
cult.  You  would  not  see  it  if  you  were  not  a  collector  of  such 
values. 

"Nobody  will  be  likely  to  see  him  as  he  is  unless  he  is 
pointed  out  to  them,"  was  what  he  said  to  his  daughters.  "  But 
being  bored  to  death, —  we  are  all  bored, —  once  adroitly  as 
sisted  to  suspect  him  of  being  alluring,  most  of  them  will 
spring  upon  him  and  clasp  him  to  their  wearied  breasts.  I 
have  n't  the  least  idea  what  will  happen  afterward.  I  shall  in 
fact  await  the  result  with  interest/' 

Being  told  Palliser's  story  of  the  "  Ladies,"  he  listened,  hold 
ing  the  tips  of  his  fingers  together,  and  wearing  an  expression 
of  deep  interest  slightly  baffled  in  its  nature.  It  was  Lady 
Edith  who  related  the  anecdote  to  him. 

"  Now,"  he  said,  "  it  would  be  very  curious  and  complicating 

310 


T.    TEMBAEOM  311 

if  that  were  true;  but  I  don't  believe  it  is.  Palliser,  of  course, 
likes  to  tell  a  good  story.  I  shall  be  able  to  discover  in  time 
whether  it  is  true  or  not;  but  at  present  I  don't  believe  it." 

Following  the  dinner  party  at  Stone  Hover  came  many 
others.  All  the  well-known  carriages  began  to  roll  up  the 
avenue  to  Temple  Barholm.  The  Temple  Barholm  carriages 
also  began  to  roll  down  the  avenue  and  between  the  stone  grif 
fins  on  their  way  to  festive  gatherings  of  varied  order.  Burrill 
and  the  footmen  ventured  to  reconsider  their  early  plans  for 
giving  warning.  It  wasn't  so  bad  if  the  country  was  going 
to  take  him  up. 

"Do  you  see  what  is  happening?"  Lady  Mallowe  said  to 
Joan.  "The  man  is  becoming  actually  popular." 

"  He  is  popular  as  a  turn  at  a  music  hall  is,"  answered  Joan. 
"  He  will  be  dropped  as  he  was  taken  up." 

"There's  something  about  him  they  like,  and  he  represents 
what  everybody  most  wants.  For  God's  sake!  Joan,  don't  be 
have  like  a  fool  this  time.  The  case  is  more  desperate.  There 
is  nothing  else  —  nothing." 

"  There  never  was,"  said  Joan,  "  and  I  know  the  desperate- 
ness  of  the  case.  How  long  are  you  going  to  stay  here  ?  " 

"  I  am  going  to  stay  for  some  time.  They  are  not  conven 
tional  people.  It  can  be  managed  very  well.  We  are  rela 
tives." 

"Will  you  stay,"  inquired  Joan  in  a  low  voice,  "until  they 
ask  you  to  remove  yourself  ?  " 

Lady  Mallowe  smiled  an  agreeably  subtle  smile. 

"  Not  quite  that,"  she  answered.  "  Miss  Alicia  would  never 
have  the  courage  to  suggest  it.  It  takes  courage  and  sophis 
tication  to  do  that  sort  of  thing.  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  evi 
dently  wants  us  to  remain.  He  will  be  willing  to  make  as 
much  of  the  relationship  as  we  choose  to  let  him." 

"Do  you  choose  to  let  him  make  as  much  of  it  as  will  estab 
lish  us  here  for  weeks  —  or  months  ? "  Joan  asked,  her  low 
voice  shaking  a  little. 

"That  will  depend  entirely  upon  circumstances.  It  will,  in 
fact,  depend  entirely  upon  you,"  said  Lady  Mallowe,  her  lips 
setting  themselves  into  a  straight,  thin  line. 


312  T.    TEMBAROM 

For  an  appreciable  moment  Joan  was  silent;  but  after  it  she 
lost  her  head  and  whirled  about. 

"  I  shall  go  away,"  she  cried. 

"  Where  ?  "  asked  Lady  Mallowe. 

"  Back  to  London/' 

"  How  much  money  have  you  ? "  asked  her  mother.  She 
knew  she  had  none.  She  was  always  sufficiently  shrewd  to  see 
that  she  had  none.  If  the  girl  had  had  a  pound  a  week  of  her 
own,  her  mother  had  always  realized  that  she  would  have  been 
unmanageable.  After  the  Jem  Temple  Barholm  affair  she 
would  have  been  capable  of  going  to  live  alone  in  slums.  As 
it  was,  she  knew  enough  to  be  aware  that  she  was  too  handsome 
to  walk  out  into  Piccadilly  without  a  penny  in  her  pocket;  so 
it  had  been  just  possible  to  keep  her  indoors. 

"  How  much  money  have  you  ?  "  she  repeated  quietly.  This 
was  the  way  in  which  their  unbearable  scenes  began  —  the 
scenes  which  the  servants  passing  the  doors  paused  to  listen  to 
in  the  hope  that  her  ladyship  would  forget  that  raised  voices 
may  be  heard  by  the  discreet  outsider. 

"  How  much  money  have  you  ?  "  she  said  again. 

Joan  looked  at  her;  this  time  it  was  for  about  five  seconds. 
She  turned  her  back  on  her  and  walked  out  of  the  room. 
Shortly  afterward  Lady  Mallowe  saw  her  walking  down  the 
avenue  in  the  rain,  which  was  beginning  to  fall. 

She  had  left  the  house  because  she  dared  not  stay  in  it. 
Once  out  in  the  park,  she  folded  her  long  purple  cloak  about 
her  and  pulled  her  soft  purple  felt  hat  down  over  her  brows, 
walking  swiftly  under  the  big  trees  without  knowing  where 
she  intended  to  go  before  she  returned.  She  liked  the  rain,  she 
liked  the  heavy  clouds;  she  wore  her  dark  purples  because  she 
felt  a  fantastic,  secret  comfort  in  calling  them  her  mourning 
—  her  mourning  which  she  would  wear  forevermore. 

No  one  could  know  so  well  as  herself  how  desperate  from 
her  own  point  of  view  the  case  was.  She  had  long  known  that 
her  mother  would  not  hesitate  for  a  moment  before  any  chance 
of  a  second  marriage  which  would  totally  exclude  her  daughter 
from  her  existence.  Why  should  she,  after  all,  Joan  thought? 
They  had  always  been  antagonists.  The  moment  of  chance 


T.    TEMBAROM  313 

had  been  looming  on  the  horizon  for  months.  Sir  Moses 
Monaldini  had  hovered  about  fitfully  and  evidently  doubtfully 
at  first,  more  certainly  and  frequently  of  late,  but  always  with 
a  clearly  objecting  eye  cast  askance  upon  herself.  With  deter 
mination  and  desire  to  establish  a  social  certainty,  astute 
enough  not  to  care  specially  for  young  beauty  and  exactions  he 
did  not  purpose  to  submit  to,  and  keen  enough  to  see  the 
advantage  of  a  handsome  woman  with  bitter  reason  to  value 
what  was  offered  to  her  in  the  form  of  a  luxurious  future,  Sir 
Moses  was  moving  toward  action,  though  with  proper  caution. 
He  would  have  no  penniless  daughters  hanging  about  scowling 
and  sneering.  None  of  that  for  him.  And  the  ripest  apple 
upon  the  topmost  bow  in  the  highest  wind  would  not  drop 
more  readily  to  his  feet  than  her  mother  would,  Joan  knew 
with  sharp  and  shamed  burnings. 

As  the  rain  fell,  she  walked  in  her  purple  cloak,  unpaid  for, 
and  her  purple  hat,  for  which  they  had  been  dunned  with 
threatening  insults,  and  knew  that  she  did  not  own  and  could 
not  earn  a  penny.  She  could  not  dig,  and  to  beg  she  was 
ashamed,  and  all  the  more  horribly  because  she  had  been  a 
beggar  of  the  meaner  order  all  her  life.  It  made  her  sick  to 
think  of  the  perpetual  visits  they  had  made  where  they  were  not 
wanted,  of  the  times  when  they  had  been  politely  bundled  out 
of  places,  of  the  methods  which  had  been  used  to  induce  shop 
keepers  to  let  them  run  up  bills.  For  years  her  mother  and 
she  had  been  walking  advertisements  of  smart  shops  because 
both  were  handsome,  wore  clothes  well,  and  carried  them  where 
they  would  be  seen  and  talked  about.  Now  this  would  be  all 
over,  since  it  had  been  Lady  Mallowe  who  had  managed  all 
details.  Thrown  upon  her  own  resources,  Joan  would  have 
none  of  them,  even  though  she  must  walk  in  rags.  Her  edu 
cation  had  prepared  her  for  only  one  thing— -  to  marry  well, 
if  luck  were  on  her  side.  It  had  never  been  on  her  side.  If 
she  had  never  met  Jem,  she  would  have  married  somebody, 
since  that  would  have  been  better  than  the  inevitable  last  slide 
into  an  aging  life  spent  in  cheap  lodgings  with  her  mother. 
But  Jem  had  been  the  beginning  and  the  end. 

She  bit  her  lips  as  she  walked,  and  suddenly  tears  swept 


314  T.    TEMBAROM 

down  her  cheeks  and  dripped  on  to  the  purple  cloth  folded  over 
her  breast. 

"  And  he  sits  in  Jem's  place !  And  every  day  that  common, 
foolish  stare  will  follow  me ! "  she  said. 

He  sat,  it  was  true,  in  the  place  Jem  Temple  Barholm 
would  have  occupied  if  he  had  been  a  living  man,  and  he  looked 
at  her  a  good  deal:  Perhaps  he  sometimes  unconsciously 
stared  because  she  made  him  think  of  many  things.  But  if 
she  had  been  in  a  state  of  mind  admitting  of  judicial  fairness, 
she  would  have  been  obliged  to  own  that  it  was  not  quite  a 
foolish  stare.  Absorbed,  abstracted,  perhaps,  but  it  was  not 
foolish.  Sometimes,  on  the  contrary,  it  was  searching  and 
keen. 

Of  course  he  was  doing  his  best  to  please  her.  Of  all  the 
"  Ladies,"  it  seemed  evident  that  he  was  most  attracted  by  her. 
He  tried  to  talk  to  her  despite  her  unending  rebuffs,  he  fol 
lowed  her  about  and  endeavored  to  interest  her,  he  presented  a 
hide-bound  unsensitiveness  when  she  did  her  worst.  Perhaps 
he  did  not  even  know  that  she  was  being  icily  rude.  He  was 
plainly  "  making  up  to  her "  after  the  manner  of  his  class. 
He  was  perhaps  playing  the  part  of  the  patient  adorer  who 
melted  by  noble  long-suffering  in  novels  distinguished  by 
heroes  of  humble  origin. 

She  had  reached  the  village  when  the  rain  changed  its  mind, 
and  without  warning  began  to  pour  down  as  if  the  black  cloud 
passing  overhead  had  suddenly  opened.  She  was  wondering  if 
she  would  not  turn  in  somewhere  for  shelter  until  the  worst 
was  over  when  a  door  opened  and  Tembarom  ran  out  with  an 
umbrella. 

"  Come  in  to  the  Hibblethwaites  cottage,  Lady  Joan,"  he 
said.  "  This  will  be  over  directly." 

He  did  not  affectionately  hustle  her  in  by  the  arm  as  he 
would  have  hustled  in  Miss  Alicia,  but  he  closely  guarded  her 
with  the  umbrella  until  he  guided  her  inside. 

"  Thank  you,"  she  said. 

The  first  object  she  became  aware  of  was  a  thin  face  with 
pointed  chin  and  ferret  eyes  peering  at  her  round  the  end  of  a 
sofa,  then  a  sharp  voice. 


T.   TEMBAROM  315 

i 

"  Tak'  off  her  cloak  an'  shake  th'  rain  off  it  in  th'  wash  'us'," 
it  said.  "  Mother  an'  Aunt  Susan 's  out.  Let  him  unbutton 
it  fer  thee." 

"  I  can  unbutton  it  myself,  thank  you/'  said  Lady  Joan. 
Tembarom  took  it  when  she  had  unbuttoned  it.  He  took  it 
from  her  shoulders  before  she  had  time  to  stop  him.  Then  he 
walked  into  the  tiny  "  wash  'us  "  and  shook  it  thoroughly.  He 
came  back  and  hung  it  on  a  chair  before  the  fire. 

Tummas  was  leaning  back  in  his  pillows  and  gazing  at  her. 

"  I  know  tha  name,"  he  said.  "  He  towd  me,"  with  a  jerk 
of  the  head  toward  Tembarom. 

"  Did  he  ?  "  replied  Lady  Joan  without  interest. 

A  flaringly  illustrated  New  York  paper  was  spread  out  upon 
his  sofa.  He  pushed  it  aside  and  pulled  the  shabby  atlas  to 
ward  him.  It  fell  open  at  a  map  of  North  America  as  if 
through  long  habit. 

"  Sit  thee  down,"  he  ordered. 

Tembarom  had  stood  watching  them  both. 

"  I  guess  you  'd  better  not  do  that,"  he  suggested  to  Tum- 
mas. 

"  Why  not  ?  "  said  the  boy,  sharply.  "  She 's  th'  wench  he 
was  goin'  to  marry.  It 's  th'  same  as  if  he  'd  married  her. 
If  she  wur  his  widder,  she  'd  want  to  talk  about  him.  Widders 
allus  wants  to  talk.  Why  shouldn't  she?  Women's  women. 
He  'd  ha'  wanted  to  talk  about  her." 

"  Who  is  '  he  '  ?  "  asked  Joan  with  stiff  lips. 

"  The  Temple  Barholm  as'  'd  be  here  if  he  was  na." 

Joan  turned  to  Tembarom. 

"Do  you  come  here  to  talk  to  this  boy  about  Mm?"  she 
said.  "  How  dare  you !  " 

Tummas's  eyes  snapped;  his  voice  snapped  also. 

"He  knew  next  to  nowt  about  him  till  I  towd  him,"  he 
said.  "Then  he  came  to  ax  me  things  an'  foind  out  more. 
He  knows  as  much  as  I  do  now.  Us  sits  here  an'  talks  him 
over." 

Lady  Joan  still  addressed  Tembarom. 

"What  interest  can  you  have  in  the  man  who  ought  to  be 
in  your  place  ?  "  she  asked.  "  What  possible  interest  ?  " 


316  T.  TEMBAROM 

"  Well,"  he  answered  awkwardly,  "  because  he  ought  to  be, 
I  suppose.  Ain't  that  reason  enough?" 

He  had  never  had  to  deal  with  women  who  hated  him  and 
who  were  angry  and  he  did  not  know  exactly  what  to  say.  He 
had  known  very  few  women,  and  he  had  always  been  good- 
natured  with  them  and  won  their  liking  in  some  measure. 
Also,  there  was  in  his  attitude  toward  this  particular  woman  a 
baffled  feeling  that  he  could  not  make  her  understand  him. 
She  would  always  think  of  him  as  an  enemy  and  believe  he 
meant  things  he  did  not  mean.  If  he  had  been  born  and  edu 
cated  in  her  world,  he  could  have  used  her  own  language;  but 
he  could  use  only  his  own,  and  there  were  so  many  things  he 
must  not  say  for  a  time  at  least. 

"Do  you  not  realize,"  she  said,  "that  you  are  presuming 
upon  your  position  —  that  you  and  this  boy  are  taking  liber 
ties?" 

Tummas  broke  in  wholly  without  compunction. 

"  I  've  taken  liberties  aw  my  loif e,"  he  stated,  "  an'  I  'm 
goin'  to  tak*  'em  till  I  dee.  They  're  th'  on'y  things  I  can  tak', 
lyin'  here  crippled,  an'  I  'm  goin'  to  tak'  'em." 

"  Stop  that,  Tummas ! "  said  Tembarom  with  friendly  au 
thority.  "  She  does  n't  catch  on,  and  you  don't  catch  on,  either. 
You  ?re  both  of  you  'way  off.  Stop  it !  " 

"  I  thought  happen  she  could  tell  me  things  I  did  n't  know," 
protested  Tummas,  throwing  himself  back  on  his  pillows.  "  If 
she  conna,  she  conna,  an'  if  she  wunnot,  she  wunnot.  Get  out  wi' 
thee ! "  he  said  to  Joan.  "  I  dunnot  want  thee  about  th' 
place." 

"  Say,"  said  Tembarom,  "  shut  up ! " 

"  I  am  going,"  said  Lady  Joan  and  turned  to  open  the  door. 

The  rain  was  descending  in  torrents,  but  she  passed  swiftly 
out  into  its  deluge  walking  as  rapidly  as  she  could.  She 
thought  she  cared  nothing  about  the  rain,  but.it  dashed  in  her 
face  and  eyes,  taking  her  breath  away,  and  she  had  need  of 
breath  when  her  heart  was  beating  with  such  fierceness. 

"If  she  wur  his  widder,"  the  boy  had  said. 

Even  chance  could  not  let  her  alone  at  one  of  her  worst 
moments.  She  walked  faster  and  faster  because  she  was  afraid 


T.   TEMBAROM  317 

Tembarom  would  follow  her,  and  in  a  few  minutes  she  heard 
him  splashing  behind  her,  and  then  he  was  at  her  side,  holding 
the  umbrella  over  her  head. 

"  You  're  a  good  walker,"  he  said,  "  but  I  'm  a  sprinter.  I 
trained  running  after  street  cars  and  catching  the  '  L '  in  New 
York." 

She  had  so  restrained  her  miserable  hysteric  impulse  to 
break  down  and  utterly  humiliate  herself  under  the  unexpected 
blow  of  the  episode  in  the  cottage  that  she  had  had  no  breath 
to  spare  when  she  left  the  room,  and  her  hurried  effort  to  escape 
had  left  her  so  much  less  that  she  did  not  speak. 

"  I  '11  tell  you  something,"  he  went  on.  "  He 's  a  little 
freak,  but  you  can't  blame  him  much.  Don't  be  mad  at  him. 
He  's  never  moved  from  that  corner  since  he  was  born,  I  guess, 
and  he 's  got  nothing  to  do  or  to  think  of  but  just  hearing 
what 's  happening  outside.  He 's  sort  of  crazy  curious,  and 
when  he  gets  hold  of  a  thing  that  suits  him  he  just  holds  on  to 
it  till  the  last  bell  rings." 

She  said  nothing  whatever,  and  he  paused  a  moment  be 
cause  he  wanted  to  think  over  the  best  way  to  say  the  next 
thing. 

"  Mr.  James  Temple  Barholm  " —  he  ventured  it  with  more 
delicacy  of  desire  not  to  seem  to  "  take  liberties "  than  she 
would  have  credited  him  with  — "  saw  his  mother  sitting  with 
him  in  her  arms  at  the  cottage  door  a  week  or  so  after  he  was 
born.  He  stopped  at  the  gate  and  talked  to  her  about  him, 
and  he  left  him  a  sovereign.  He 's  got  it  now.  It  seems  a 
fortune  to  him.  He  's  made  a  sort  of  idol  of  him.  That 's 
why  he  talks  like  he  does.  I  wouldn't  let  it  make  me  mad  if 
I  were  you." 

He  did  not  know  that  she  could  not  have  answered  him  if 
she  would,  that  she  felt  that  if  he  did  not  stop  she  might  fling 
herself  down  upon  the  wet  heather  and  wail  aloud. 

"  You  don't  like  me,"  he  began  after  they  had  walked  a  few 
steps  farther.  "You  don't  like  me." 

This  was  actually  better.  It  choked  back  the  sobs  rising  in 
her  throat.  The  stupid  shock  of  it,  his  tasteless  foolishness, 
helped  her  by  its  very  folly  to  a  sort  of  defense  against  the 


318  T.  TEMBAKOM 

disastrous  wave  of  emotion  she  might  not  have  been  able  to 
control.  She  gathered  herself  together. 

"  It  must  he  an  unusual  experience,"  she  answered. 

"  Well,  it  is  —  sort  of/'  he  said,  but  in  a  manner  curiously 
free  from  fatuous  swagger.  "  I  've  had  luck  that  way.  I  guess 
it 's  been  because  I  'd  got  to  make  friends  so  as  I  could  earn  a 
living.  It  seems  sort  of  queer  to  know  that  some  one's  got  a 
grouch  against  me  that  —  that  I  can't  get  away  with." 

She  looked  up  the  avenue  to  see  how  much  farther  they  must 
walk  together,  since  she  was  not  "  a  sprinter "  and  could  not 
get  away  from  him.  She  thought  she  caught  a  glimpse 
through  the  trees  of  a  dog-cart  driven  by  a  groom,  and  hoped 
she  had  not  mistaken  and  that  it  was  driving  in  their  direction. 

"  It  must,  indeed/'  she  said,  "  though  I  am  not  sure  I  quite 
understand  what  a  grouch  is." 

"  When  you  've  got  a  grouch  against  a  fellow,"  he  explained 
impersonally,  "you  want  to  get  at  him.  You  want  to  make 
him  feel  like  a  mutt;  and  a  mutt's  the  worst  kind  of  a  fool. 
You've  got  one  against  me." 

She  looked  before  her  between  narrowed  lids  and  faintly 
smiled  —  the  most  disagreeable  smile  she  was  capable  of.  And 
yet  for  some  too  extraordinary  reason  he  went  on.  But  she  had 
seen  men  go  on  before  this  when  all  the  odds  were  against 
them.  Sometimes  their  madness  took  them  this  way. 

"I  knew  there  was  a  lot  against  me  when  I  came  here,"  he 
persisted.  "I  should  have  been  a  fool  if  I  hadn't.  I  knew 
when  you  came  that  I  was  up  against  a  pretty  hard  proposition ; 
but  I  thought  perhaps  if  I  got  busy  and  showed  you  —  you  've 
got  to  show  a  person — " 

"  Showed  me  what  ?  "  she  asked  contemptuously. 

"  Showed  you  —  well  —  me,"  he  tried  to  explain. 

"You!" 

"  And  that  I  wanted  to  be  friends,"  he  added  candidly. 

Was  the  man  mad?  Did  he  realize  nothing?  Was  he  too 
thick  of  skin  even  to  see  ? 

"  Friends !  You  and  I?  "  The  words  ought  to  have  scorched 
him,  pachyderm  though  he  was. 

"  I  thought  you  'd  give  me  a  chance  —  a  sort  of  chance  — " 


T.    TEMBAEOM  319 

She  stopped  short  on  the  avenue. 

"You  did?" 

She  had  not  been  mistaken.  The  dog-cart  had  rounded  the 
far-off  curve  and  was  coming  toward  them.  And  the  man  went 
on  talking. 

"  You  've  felt  every  minute  that  I  was  in  a  place  that  did  n't 
belong  to  me.  You  know  that  if  the  man  that  it  did  belong  to 
was  here,  you  'd  be  here  with  him.  You  felt  as  if  I  'd  robbed  him 
of  it  —  and  I  'd  robbed  you.  It  was  your  home  —  yours.  You 
hated  me  too  much  to  think  of  anything  else.  Suppose — - 
suppose  there  was  a  way  I  could  give  it  back  to  you  —  make 
it  your  home  again." 

His  voice  dropped  and  was  rather  unsteady.  The  fool,  the 
gross,  brutal,  vulgar,  hopeless  fool !  He  thought  this  was  the 
way  to  approach  her,  to  lead  her  to  listen  to  his  proposal  of 
marriage !  Not  for  a  second  did  she  guess  that  they  were  talk 
ing  at  cross  purposes.  She  did  not  know  that  as  he  kept  himself 
steady  under  her  contemptuousness  he  was  thinking  that  Ann 
would  have  to  own  that  he  had  been  up  against  it  hard  and 
plenty  while  the  thing  was  going  on. 

"  I  'm.  always  up  against  it  when  I  'm  talking  to  you,"  he  said. 
"  You  get  me  rattled.  There  's  things  I  want  to  talk  about  and 
ask  you.  Suppose  you  give  me  a  chance,  and  let  us  start  out 
by  being  sort  of  friends." 

"  I  am  staying  in  your  house,"  she  answered  in  a  deadly  voice, 
"and  I  cannot  go  away  because  my  mother  will  not  let  me. 
You  can  force  yourself  upon  me,  if  you  choose,  because  I  cannot 
help  it;  but  understand  once  for  all  that  I  will  not  give  you 
your  ridiculous  chance.  And  I  will  not  utter  one  word  to  you 
when  I  can  avoid  it." 

He  was  silent  for  a  moment  and  seemed  to  be  thinking 
rather  deeply.  She  realized  now  that  he  saw  the  nearing  dog 
cart. 

"  You  won't.  Then  it 's  up  to  me,"  he  said.  Then  with  a 
change  of  tone,  he  added,  "  I  '11  stop  the  cart  and  tell  the 
man  to  drive  you  to  the  house.  I  'm  not  going  to  force  myself 
on  you,  as  you  call  it.  It  'd  be  no  use.  Perhaps  it  '11  come 
all  right  in  the  end." 


320  T.  TEMBAROM 

He  made  a  sign  to  the  groom,  who  hastened  his  horse's  pace 
and  drew  up  when  he  reached  them. 

"  Take  this  lady  back  to  the  house,"  he  said. 

The  groom,  who  was  a  new  arrival,  began  to  prepare  to  get 
down  and  give  up  his  place. 

"You  needn't  do  that,"  said  Tembarom. 

"  Won't  you  get  up  and  take  the  reins,  sir  ?  "  the  man  asked 
uncertainly. 

"  No.    I  can't  drive.    You  11  have  to  do  it.    I  '11  walk." 

And  to  the  groom's  amazement,  they  left  him  standing  under 
the  trees  looking  after  them. 

"  It 's  up  to  me,"  he  was  saying.  "  The  whole  durned  thing 's 
up  to  me." 


CHAPTEE  XXVI 


'HE  neighborhood  of  Temple  Barholm  was 
not,  upon  the  whole,  a  brilliant  one.  In 
deed,  it  had  been  frankly  designated  by 
the  casual  guest  as  dull.  The  country 
was  beautiful  enough,  and  several  rather 
large  estates  lay  within  reach  of  one  an 
other,  but  their  owners  were  neither  very 
rich  nor  especially  notable  personages. 
They  were  of  extremely  good  old  blood, 
and  were  of  established  respectability. 
None  of  them,  however,  was  given  to  en 
tertaining  house  parties  made  up  of  the 
smart  and  dazzlingly  sinful  world  of  fashion  said  by  moralists  to 
be  composed  entirely  of  young  and  mature  beauties,  male  and 
female,  capable  of  supplying  at  any  moment  enlivening  detail  for 
the  divorce  court  —  glittering  beings  whose  wardrobes  were  aston 
ishing  and  whose  conversations  were  composed  wholly  of  brilliant 
paradox  and  sparkling  repartee. 

Most  of  the  residents  took  their  sober  season  in  London,  the 
men  of  the  family  returning  gladly  to  their  pheasants,  the 
women  not  regretfully  to  their  gardens  and  tennis,  because  their 
successes  in  town  had  not  been  particularly  delirious.  The 
guests  who  came  to  them  were  generally  as  respectable  and  law- 
abiding  as  themselves,  and  introduced  no  iconoclastic  diversions. 
For  the  greater  portion  of  the  year,  in  fact,  diners  out  were  of 
the  neighborhood  and  met  the  neighborhood,  and  were  reduced 
to  discussing  neighborhood  topics,  which  was  not,  on  the  whole, 
a  fevered  joy.  The  Duke  of  Stone  was,  perhaps,  the  one  man 
who  might  have  furnished  topics.  Privately  it  was  believed, 
and  in  part  known,  that  he  at  least  had  had  a  brilliant,  if  not 
wholly  unreprehensible,  past.  He  might  have  introduced  en- 

321 


322  T.  TEMBAROH 

livening  elements  from  London,  even  from  Paris,  Vienna,  Berlin, 
and  Eome;  but  the  sobering  influence  of  years  of  rheumatic 
gout  and  a  not  entirely  sufficing  income  prevented  activities,  and 
his  opinions  of  his  social  surroundings  were  vaguely  guessed  to 
be  those  of  a  not  too  lenient  critic. 

"  I  do  not  know  anything  technical  or  scientific  about  ditch- 
water/'  he  had  expressed  himself  in  the  bosom  of  his  family. 
"  I  never  analyzed  it,  but  analyzers,  I  gather,  consider  it  dull. 
If  anything  could  be  duller  than  ditch-water,  I  should  say  it  was 
Stone  Hover  and  its  surrounding  neighborhood."  He  had  also 
remarked  at  another  time :  "  If  our  society  could  be  enriched 
by  some  of  the  characters  who  form  the  house  parties  and  seem, 
in  fact,  integral  parts  of  all  country  society  in  modern  problem 
or  even  unproblem  novels,  how  happy  one  might  be,  how  edified 
and  amused!  A  wicked  lady  or  so  of  high,  or  extremely  low, 
rank,  of  immense  beauty  and  corruscating  brilliancy;  a  lovely 
creature,  male  or  female,  whom  she  is  bent  upon  undoing  — 

"  Dear  papa !  "  protested  Lady  Celia. 

"Reproach  me,  dearest.  Reproach  me  as  severely  as  you 
please.  It  inspires  me.  It  makes  me  feel  like  a  wicked,  dan 
gerous  man,  and  I  have  not  felt  like  one  for  many  years.  Such 
persons  as  I  describe  form  the  charm  of  existence,  I  assure 
you.  A  ruthless  adventuress  with  any  kind  of  good  looks  would 
be  the  making  of  us.  Several  of  them,  of  different  types,  a 
handsome  villain,  and  a  few  victims  unknowing  of  their  fate, 
would  cause  life  to  flow  by  like  a  peaceful  stream." 

Lady  Edith  laughed  an  unseemly  little  laugh  —  unseemly, 
since  filial  regret  at  paternal  obliquity  should  have  restrained  it. 

"  Papa,  you  are  quite  horrible,"  she  said.  "  You  ought  not 
to  make  your  few  daughters  laugh  at  improper  things." 

"  I  would  make  my  daughters  laugh  at  anything  so  long  as 
I  must  doom  them  to  Stone  Hover  —  and  Lady  Pevensy  and 
Mrs.  Stoughton  and  the  rector,  if  one  may  mention  names,"  he 
answered.  "  To  see  you  laugh  revives  me  by  reminding  me  that 
once  I  was  considered  a  witty  person  —  quite  so.  Some  cen 
turies  ago,  however;  about  the  time  when  things  were  being 
rebuilt  after  the  flood." 

In  such  circumstances  it  cannot  be  found  amazing  that   a 


T.    TEMBAKOM  323 

situation  such  as  Temple  Barholm  presented  should  provide  rich 
food  for  conversation,  supposition,  argument,  and  humorous 
comment. 

T.  Tembarom  himself,  after  the  duke  had  established  him, 
furnished  an  unlimited  source  of  interest.  His  household  be 
came  a  perennial  fount  of  quiet  discussion.  Lady  Mallowe  and 
her  daughter  were  the  members  of  it  who  met  with  the  most 
attention.  They  appeared  to  have  become  members  of  it  rather 
than  visitors.  Her  ladyship  had  plainly  elected  to  extend  her 
stay  even  beyond  the  period  to  which  a  fond  relative  might 
feel  entitled  to  hospitality.  She  had  been  known  to  extend 
visits  before  with  great  cleverness,  but  this  one  assumed  an 
established  aspect.  She  was  not  going  away,  the  neighborhood 
decided,  until  she  had  achieved  that  which  she  had  come  to 
accomplish.  The  present  unconventional  atmosphere  of  the 
place  naturally  supported  her.  And  how  probable  it  seemed, 
taking  into  consideration  Captain  Palliser's  story,  that  Mr. 
Temple  Barholm  wished  her  to  stay.  Lady  Joan  would  be 
obliged  to  stay  also,  if  her  mother  intended  that  she  should. 
But  the  poor  American  —  there  were  some  expressions  of  sym 
pathy,  though  the  situation  was  greatly  added  to  by  the  feature 
—  the  poor  .American  was  being  treated  by  Lady  Joan  as  only 
she  could  treat  a  man.  It  was  worth  inviting  the  whole  party 
to  dinner  or  tea  or  lunch  merely  to  see  the  two  together.  The 
manner  in  which  she  managed  to  ignore  him  and  be  scathing 
to  him  without  apparently  infringing  a  law  of  civility,  and  the 
number  of  laws  she  sometimes  chose  to  sweep  aside  when  it 
was  her  mood  to  do  so,  were  extraordinary.  If  she  had  not 
been  a  beauty,  with  a  sort  of  mystic  charm  for  the  male  creature, 
surely  he  would  have  broken  his  chains.  But  he  did  not. 
What  was  he  going  to  do  in  the  end?  What  was  she  going  to 
do  ?  What  was  Lady  Mallowe  going  to  do  if  there  was  no  end 
at  all?  He  was  not  as  unhappy-looking  a  lover  as  one  might 
have  expected,  they  said.  He  kept  up  his  spirits  wonderfully. 
Perhaps  she  was  not  always  as  icily  indifferent  to  him  as  she 
chose  to  appear  in  public.  Temple  Barholm  was  a  great  estate, 
and  Sir  Moses  Monaldini  had  been  mentioned  by  rumor.  Of 
course  there  would  be  something  rather  strange  and  tragic  in 


324  T.  TEMBAROM 

it  if  she  came  to  Temple  Barholm  as  its  mistress  in  such  singular 
circumstances.  But  he  certainly  did  not  look  depressed  or  dis 
couraged.  So  they  talked  it  over  as  they  looked  on. 

"  How  they  gossip !  How  delightfully  they  gossip ! "  said 
the  duke.  "  But  it  is  such  a  perfect  subject.  They  have  never 
been  so  enthralled  before.  Dear  young  man!  how  grateful  we 
ought  to  be  for  him  1 " 

One  of  the  most  discussed  features  of  the  case  was  the  duke's 
own  cultivation  of  the  central  figure.  There  was  an  actual 
oddity  about  it.  He  drove  from  Stone  Hover  to  Temple  Bar- 
holm  repeatedly.  He  invited  Tembarom  to  the  castle  and  had 
long  talks  with  him  —  long,  comfortable  talks  in  secluded,  de 
lightful  rooms  or  under  great  trees  on  a  lawn.  He  wanted  to 
hear  anecdotes  of  his  past,  to  draw  him  on  to  giving  his  points 
of  view.  When  he  spoke  of  him  to  his  daughters,  he  called 
him  "  T.  Tembarom,"  but  the  slight  derision  of  his  earlier  tone 
modified  itself. 

"That  delightful  young  man  will  shortly  become  my  closest 
intimate,"  he  said.  "He  not  only  keeps  up  my  spirits,  but  he 
opens  up  vistas.  Vistas  after  a  man's  seventy-second  birthday ! 
At  times  I  could  clasp  him  to  my  breast." 

"I  like  him  first  rate,"  Tembarom  said  to  Miss  Alicia.  "I 
liked  him  the  minute  he  got  up  laughing  like  an  old  sport  when 
he  fell  out  of  the  pony  carriage." 

As  he  became  more  intimate  with  him,  he  liked  him  still 
better.  Obscured  though  it  was  by  airy,  elderly  persiflage,  he 
began  to  come  upon  a  background  of  stability  and  points  of 
view  wholly  to  be  relied  on  in  his  new  acquaintance.  It  had 
evolved  itself  out  of  long  and  varied  experience,  with  the  aid 
of  brilliant  mentality.  The  old  peer's  reasons  were  always  logical. 
He  laughed  at  most  things,  but  at  a  few  he  did  not  laugh  at  all. 
After  several  of  the  long  conversations  Tembarom  began  to  say 
to  himself  that  this  seemed  like  a  man  you  need  not  be  afraid 
to  talk  things  over  with  —  things  you  didn't  want  to  speak  of 
to  everybody. 

"  Seems  to  me,"  he  said  thoughtfully  to  Miss  Alicia,  "  he 's 
an  old  fellow  you  could  tie  to.  I  've  got  on  to  one  thing  when 
I've  listened  to  him:  he  talks  all  he  wants  to  and  laughs  a 


T.    TEMBAROM  325 

lot,  but  he  never  gives  himself  away.  He  would  n't  give  another 
fellow  away  either  if  he  said  he  wouldn't.  He  knows  how 
not  to." 

There  was  an  afternoon  on  which  during  a  drive  they  took 
together  the  duke  was  enlightened  as  to  several  points  which 
had  given  him  cause  for  reflection,  among  others  the  story 
beloved  of  Captain  Palliser  and  his  audiences. 

"  I  guess  you  've  known  a  good  many  women,"  T.  Tembarom 
remarked  on  this  occasion  after  a  few  minutes  of  thought. 
"Living  all  over  the  world  as  you've  done,  you'd  be  likely  to 
come  across  a  whole  raft  of  them  one  time  and  another." 

"A  whole  raft  of  them,  one  time  and  another,"  agreed  the 
duke.  "  Yes." 

"  You  've  liked  them,  have  n't  you  ?  " 

"  Immensely.  Sometimes  a  trifle  disastrously.  Find  me  a 
more  absolutely  interesting  object  in  the  universe  than  a  woman 

—  any  woman  —  and  I  will  devote  the  remainder  of  my  declining 
years  to  the  study  of  it,"  answered  his  grace. 

He  said  it  with  a  decision  which  made  T.  Tembarom  turn 
to  look  at  him,  and  after  his  look  decide  to  proceed. 

"  Have  you  ever  known  a  bit  of  a  slim  thing  " —  he  made  an 
odd  embracing  gesture  with  his  arm  — "  the  size  that  you  could 
pick  up  with  one  hand  and  set  on  your  knee  as  if  she  was  a  child  " 

—  the  duke  remained  still,  knowing  this  was  only  the  beginning 
and  pricking  up  his  ears  as  he  took  a  rapid  kaleidoscopic  view 
of  all  the  "  Ladies  "  in  the  neighborhood,  and  as  hastily  waved 
them  aside  — "  a  bit  of  a  thing  that  some  way  seems  to  mean  it 
all  to  you  —  and  moves  the  world?"    The  conclusion  was  one 
which  brought  the  incongruous  touch  of  maturity  into  his  face. 

"  Not  one  of  the  '  Ladies/  "  the  duke  was  mentally  summing 
the  matter  up.  "  Certainly  not  Lady  Joan,  after  all.  Not,  I 
think,  even  the  young  person  in  the  department  store." 

He  leaned  back  in  his  corner  the  better  to  inspect  his  com 
panion  directly. 

"  You  have,  I  see,"  he  replied  quietly.  "  Once  I  myself  did." 
(He  had  cried  out,  "  Ah !  Helo'ise ! "  though  he  had  laughed  at 
himself  when  he  seemed  facing  his  ridiculous  tragedy.) 

"Yes,"  confessed  T.  Tembarom.     "I  met  her  at  the  board- 


326  T.  TEMBAEOM 

ing-house  where  I  lived.  Her  father  was  a  Lancashire  man 
and  an  inventor.  I  guess  you've  heard  of  him;  his  name  is 
Joseph  Hutchinson." 

The  whole  country  had  heard  of  him ;  more  countries,  indeed, 
than  one  had  heard.  He  was  the  man  who  was  going  to  make 
his  fortune  in  America  because  T.  Tembarom  had  stood  by  him 
in  his  extremity.  He  would  make  a  fortune  in  America  and 
another  in  England  and  possibly  several  others  on  the  Con 
tinent.  He  had  learned  to  read  in  the  village  school,  and  the 
girl  was  his  daughter. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  duke. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  the  one  you  knew  had  that  quiet 
little  way  of  seeing  right  straight  into  a  thing,  and  making 
you  see  it,  too,"  said  Tembarom. 

"  She  had,"  answerd  the  duke,  and  an  odd  expression 
wavered  in  his  eyes  because  he  was  looking  backward  across 
forty  years  which  seemed  a  hundred. 

"That's  what  I  meant  by  moving  the  world,"  T.  Tembarom 
went  on.  "You  know  she's  right,  and  you've  got  to  do  what 
she  says,  if  you  love  her." 

"  And  you  always  do,"  said  the  duke  — "  always  and  forever. 
There  are  very  few.  They  are  the  elect." 

T.  Tembarom  took  it  gravely. 

"  I  said  to  her  once  that  there  was  n't  more  than  one  of  her 
in  the  world  because  there  couldn't  be  enough  to  make  two 
of  that  kind.  I  wasn't  joshing  either;  I  meant  it.  It's  her 
quiet  little  voice  and  her  quiet,  babyfied  eyes  that  get  you  where 
you  can't  move.  And  it 's  something  else  you  don't  know  any 
thing  about.  It 's  her  never  doing  anything  for  herself,  but  just 
doing  it  because  it 's  the  right  thing  for  you." 

The  duke's  chin  had  sunk  a  little  on  his  breast,  and  looking 
back  across  the  hundred  years,  he  forgot  for  a  moment  where 
he  was.  The  one  he  remembered  had  been  another  man's  wife, 
a  little  angel  brought  up  in  a  convent  by  white-souled  nuns, 
passed  over  by  her  people  to  an  elderly  vaurien  of  great  mag 
nificence,  and  she  had  sent  the  strong,  laughing,  impassioned 
young  English  peer  away  before  it  was  too  late,  and  with  the 
young,  young  eyes  of  her  looking  upward  at  him  in  that  way 


T.  TEMBAEOM  327 

which  saw  "  straight  into  a  thing "  and  with  that  quiet  little 
voice.  So  long  ago !  So  long  ago ! 

"  Ah !     Heloise !  "  he  sighed  unconsciously. 

"  What  did  you  say  ?  "  asked  T.  Tembarom.  The  duke  came 
back. 

"I  was  thinking  of  the  time  when  I  was  nine  and  twenty/' 
he  answered.  "  It  was  not  yesterday  nor  even  the  day  before. 
The  one  I  knew  died  when  she  was  twenty-four/' 

"  Died !  "  said  Tembarom.  "  Good  Lord !  "  He  dropped  his 
head  and  even  changed  color.  "A  fellow  can't  get  on  to  a 
thing  like  that.  It  seems  as  if  it  couldn't  happen.  Sup 
pose — "  he  caught  his  breath  hard  and  then  pulled  himself  up 
— "  Nothing  could  happen  to  her  before  she  knew  that  I  've 
proved  what  I  said  —  just  proved  it,  and  done  every  single 
thing  she  told  me  to  do." 

"I  am  sure  you  have/'  the  duke  said. 

"  It 's  because  of  that  I  began  to  say  this."  Tembarom  spoke 
hurriedly  that  he  might  thrust  away  the  sudden  dark  thought. 
"  You  're  a  man,  and  I  'm  a  man ;  far  away  ahead  of  me  as 
you  are,  you're  a  man,  too.  I  was  crazy  to  get  her  to  marry 
me  and  come  here  with  me,  and  she  wouldn't." 

The  duke's  eyes  lighted  anew. 

"  She  had  her  reasons,"  he  said. 

"  She  laid  'em  out  as  if  she  'd  been  my  mother  instead  of 
a  little  red-headed  angel  that  you  wanted  to  snatch  up  and 
crush  up  to  you  so  she  couldn't  breathe.  She  didn't  waste  a 
word.  She  just  told  me  what  I  was  up  against.  She'd  lived 
in  the  village  with  her  grandmother,  and  she  knew.  She  said 
I  'd  got  to  come  and  find  out  for  myself  what  no  one  else  could 
teach  me.  She  told  me  about  the  kind  of  girls  I  'd  see  — 
beauties  that  were  different  from  anything  I  'd  ever  seen  before. 
And  it  was  up  to  me  to  see  all  of  them  —  the  best  of  them." 

"  Ladies  ?  "  interjected  the  duke  gently. 

"  Yes.  With  titles  like  those  in  novels,  she  said,  and  clothes 
like  those  in  the  Ladies'  Pictorial.  The  kind  of  girls,  she  said, 
that  would  make  her  look  like  a  housemaid.  Housemaid  be 
darned ! "  he  exclaimed,  suddenly  growing  hot.  "  I  've  seen  the 
whole  lot  of  them ;  I  've  done  my  darndest  to  get  next,  and  there  's 


328  T.  TEMBAEOM 

not  one  — "  he  stopped  short.  "  Why  should  any  of  them  look  at 
me,  anyhow?"  he  added  suddenly. 

"  That  was  not  her  point,"  remarked  the  duke.  "  She  wanted 
you  to  look  at  them,  and  you  have  looked."  T.  Tembarom's 
eagerness  was  inspiring  to  behold. 

"  I  have,  have  n't  I  ?  "  he  cried.  "  That  was  what  I  wanted 
to  ask  you.  I  've  done  as  she  said.  I  have  n't  shirked  a  thing. 
I  've  followed  them  around  when  I  knew  they  had  n't  any  use 
on  earth  for  me.  Some  of  them  have  handed  me  the  lemon 
pretty  straight.  Why  shouldn't  they?  But  I  don't  believe 
she  knew  how  tough  it  might  be  for  a  fellow  sometimes." 

"  No,  she  did  not,"  the  duke  said.  "  Also  she  probably  did 
not  know  that  in  ancient  days  of  chivalry  ladies  sent  forth  their 
knights  to  bear  buffeting  for  their  sakes  in  proof  of  fealty. 
Eise  up,  Sir  Knight ! "  This  last  phrase  of  course  T.  Tem- 
barom  did  not  know  the  poetic  significance  of. 

To  his  hearer  Palliser's  story  became  an  amusing  thing,  read 
in  the  light  of  this  most  delicious  frankness.  It  was  Palliser 
himself  who  played  the  fool,  and  not  T.  Tembarom,  who  had 
simply  known  what  he  wanted,  and  had,  with  businesslike 
directness,  applied  himself  to  finding  a  method  of  obtaining  it. 
The  young  women  he  gave  his  time  to  must  be  "  Ladies  "  be 
cause  Miss  Hutchinson  had  required  it  from  him.  The  female 
flower  of  the  noble  houses  had  been  passed  in  review  before 
him  to  practise  upon,  so  to  speak.  The  handsomer  they  were, 
the  more  dangerously  charming,  the  better  Miss  Hutchinson 
would  be  pleased.  And  he  had  been  regarded  as  a  presumptuous 
aspirant.  It  was  a  situation  for  a  comedy.  But  the  "  Ladies  " 
^would  not  enjoy  it  if  they  were  told.  It  was  also  not  the  Duke 
of  Stone  who  would  tell  them.  They  could  not  in  the  least 
understand  the  subtlety  of  the  comedy  in  which  they  had  un 
consciously  taken  part.  Ann  Hutchinson's  grandmother  curt 
sied  to  them  in  her  stiff  old  way  when  they  passed.  Ann 
Hutchinson  had  gone  to  the  village  school  and  been  presented 
with  prizes  for  needlework  and  good  behavior.  But  what  a 
girl  she  must  be,  the  slim  bit  of  a  thing  with  a  red  head! 
What  a  clear-headed  and  firm  little  person! 

In  courts  he  had  learned  to  wear  a  composed  countenance 


T.  TEMBAROM  329 

when  he  was  prompted  to  smile,  and  he  wore  one  now.  He 
enjoyed  the  society  of  T.  Tembarom  increasingly  every  hour. 
He  provided  him  with  every  joy. 

Their  drive  was  a  long  one,  and  they  talked  a  good  deal. 
They  talked  of  the  Hutchinsons,  of  the  invention,  of  the  business 
"  deals  "  Tembarom  had  entered  into  at  the  outset,  and  of  their 
tremendously  encouraging  result.  It  was  not  mere  rumor  that 
Hutchinson  would  end  by  being  a  rich  man.  The  girl  would 
be  an  heiress.  How  complex  her  position  would  be !  And 
being  of  the  elect  who  unknowingly  bear  with  them  the  power 
that  "  moves  the  world/'  how  would  she  affect  Temple  Barholm 
and  its  surrounding  neighborhood? 

"  I  wish  to  God  she  was  here  now ! "  exclaimed  Tembarom, 
suddenly. 

It  had  been  an  interesting  talk,  but  now  and  then  the 
duke  had  wondered  if,  as  it  went  on,  his  companion  was  as 
wholly  at  his  ease  as  was  usual  with  him.  An  occasional  shade 
of  absorption  in  his  expression,  as  if  he  were  thinking  of  two 
things  at  once  despite  himself,  a  hint  of  restlessness,  revealed 
themselves  occasionally.  Was  there  something  more  he  was 
speculating  on  the  possibility  of  saying,  something  more  to  tell 
or  explain?  If  there  was,  let  him  take  his  time.  His  audi 
ence,  at  all  events,  was  possessed  of  perceptions.  This  some 
what  abrupt  exclamation  might  open  the  way. 

"  That  is  easily  understood,  my  dear  fellow,"  replied  the 
duke. 

"  There 's  times  when  you  want  a  little  thing  like  that  just  to 
talk  things  over  with,  just  to  ask,  because  you  —  you  're  dead 
sure  she  'd  never  lose  her  head  and  give  herself  away  without 
knowing  she  was  doing  it.  She  could  just  keep  still  and  let 
the  waves  roll  over  her  and  be  standing  there  ready  and  quiet 
when  the  tide  had  passed.  It's  the  keeping  your  mouth  shut 
that 's  so  hard  for  most  people,  the  not  saying  a  darned  thing, 
whatever  happens,  till  just  the  right  time." 

"  Women  cannot  often  do  it,"  said  the  duke.  "  Very  few 
men  can." 

"You're  right,"  Tembarom  answered,  and  there  was  a  trifle 
of  anxiety  in  his  tone. 


330  T.  TEMBAROM 

"  There 's  women,  just  the  best  kind,  that  you  dare  n't  tell 
a  big  thing  to.  Not  that  they'd  mean  to  give  it  away, —  per 
haps  they  would  n't  know  when  they  did  it, —  but  they  'd  feel 
so  anxious  they'd  get  —  they'd  get — " 

"Rattled,"  put  in  the  duke,  and  knew  who  he  was  thinking 
of.  He  saw  Miss  Alicia's  delicate,  timid  face  as  he  spoke. 

T.  Tembarom  laughed. 

"  That 's  just  it,"  he  answered.  "  They  would  n't  go  back  on 
you  for  worlds,  but  —  well,  you  have  to  be  careful  with  them." 

"  He  's  got  something  on  his  mind,"  mentally  commented  the 
duke.  "  He  wonders  if  he  will  tell  it  to  me." 

"  And  there 's  times  when  you  'd  give  half  you  've  got  to  be 
able  to  talk  a  thing  out  and  put  it  up  to  some  one  else  for  a 
while.  I  could  do  it  with  her.  That's  why  I  said  I  wish  to 
God  that  she  was  here." 

"  You  have  learned  to  know  how  to  keep  still,"  the  duke  said. 
"  So  have  I.  We  learned  it  in  different  schools,  but  we  have 
both  learned." 

As  he  was  saying  the  words,  he  thought  he  was  going  to  hear 
something;  when  he  had  finished  saying  them  he  knew  that 
he  would  without  a  doubt.  T.  Tembarom  made  a  quick  move 
in  his  seat;  he  lost  a  shade  of  color  and  cleared  his  throat  as 
he  bent  forward,  casting  a  glance  at  the  backs  of  the  coachman 
and  footman  on  the  high  seat  above  them. 

"  Can  those  fellows  hear  me  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  No,"  the  duke  answered ;  "  if  you  speak  as  you  are  speaking 
now." 

"  You  are  the  biggest  man  about  here,"  the  young  man  went 
on.  "You  stand  for  everything  that  English  people  care  for, 
and  you  were  born  knowing  all  the  things  I  don't.  I  've  been 
carrying  a  big  load  for  quite  a  while,  and  I  guess  I  'm  not  big 
enough  to  handle  it  alone,  perhaps.  Anyhow,  I  want  to  be 
sure  I  'm  not  making  fool  mistakes.  The  worst  of  it  is  that 
I  've  got  to  keep  still  if  I  'm  right,  and  I  've  got  to  keep  still  if 
I  'm  wrong.  I  've  got  to  keep  still,  anyhow." 

"I  learned  to  hold  my  tongue  in  places  where,  if  I  had  not 
held  it,  I  might  have  plunged  nations  into  bloodshed,"  the  duke 
said.  "  Tell  me  all  you  choose." 


T.  TEMBAKOM  331 

As  a  result  of  which,  by  the  time  their  drive  had  ended  and 
they  returned  to  Stone  Hover,  he  had  told  him,  and,  the  duke 
sat  in  his  corner  of  the  carriage  with  an  unusual  light  in  his 
eyes  and  a  flush  of  somewhat  excited  color  on  his  cheek. 

"You're  a  queer  fellow,  T.  Tembarom,"  he  said  when  they 
parted  in  the  drawing-room  after  taking  tea.  "  You  exhilarate 
me.  You  make  me  laugh.  If  I  were  an  emotional  person,  you 
would  at  moments  make  me  cry.  There 's  an  affecting  up 
rightness  about  you.  You're  rather  a  fine  fellow  too,  'pon  my 
life."  Putting  a  waxen,  gout-knuckled  old  hand  on  his  shoul 
der,  and  giving  him  a  friendly  push  which  was  half  a  pat,  he 
added,  "  You  are,  by  God !  " 

And  after  his  guest  had  left  him,  the  duke  stood  for  some 
minutes  gazing  into  the  fire  with  a  complicated  smile  and  the 
air  of  a  man  who  finds  himself  quaintly  enriched. 

"  I  have  had  ambitions  in  the  course  of  my  existence  — 
several  of  them,"  he  said,  "but  even  in  over-vaulting  moments 
never  have  I  aspired  to  such  an  altitude  as  this  —  to  be,  as  it 
were,  part  of  a  melodrama.  One  feels  that  one  scarcely  de 
serves  it." 


CHAPTEE  XXVII 

R.  Temple  Barholm  seems  in  better  spirits," 
Lady  Mallowe  said  to  Captain  Palliser  as 
they  walked  on  the  terrace  in  the  starlight 
dusk  after  dinner. 

Captain  Palliser  took  his  cigar  from  his 
mouth  and  looked  at  the  glowing  end  of  it. 
"  Has  it  struck  you  that  he  has  been  in 
low  spirits  ? "  he  inquired  speculatively. 
"  One  does  not  usually  connect  him  with  de 
pression." 

"  Certainly  not  with  depression.  He 's  an 
extraordinary  creature.  One  would  think  he  would  perish  from 
lack  of  the  air  he  is  used  to  breathing  —  New  York  air." 

"  He  is  not  perishing.  He  's  too  shrewd,"  returned  Palliser. 
"  He  may  n't  exactly  like  all  this,  but  he  ?s  getting  something 
out  of  it." 

"  He  is  not  getting  much  of  what  he  evidently  wants  most.  I 
am  out  of  all  patience,"  said  Lady  Mallowe. 

Her  acquaintance  with  Palliser  had  lasted  through  a  number 
of  years.  They  argued  most  matters  from  the  same  basis  of 
reasoning.  They  were  at  times  almost  candid  with  each  other. 
It  may  be  acknowledged,  however,  that  of  the  two  Lady  Mallowe 
was  the  more  inclined  to  verge  on  self-revelation.  This  was  of 
course  because  she  was  the  less  clever  and  had  more  temper. 
Her  temper,  she  had,  now  and  then,  owned  bitterly  to  herself, 
had  played  her  tricks.  Captain  Palliser's  temper  never  did  this. 
It  was  Lady  Mallowe's  temper  which  spoke  now,  but  she  did 
not  in  the  least  mind  his  knowing  that  Joan  was  exasperating 
her  beyond  endurance.  He  knew  the  whole  situation  well 
enough  to  be  aware  of  it  without  speech  on  her  part.  He  had 
watched  similar  situations  several  times  before. 

332 


T.  TEMBAKOM  333 

"Her  manner  toward  him  is,  to  resort  to  New  York  col 
loquialisms,  'the  limit/"  Palliser  said  quietly.  "Is  it  your 
idea  that  his  less  good  spirits  have  been  due  to  Lady  Joan's 
ingenuities  ?  They  are  ingenious,  you  know." 

"  They  are  devilish,"  exclaimed  her  mother.  "  She  treads 
him  in  the  mire  and  sails  about  professing  to  be  conducting 
herself  flawlessly.  She  is  too  clever  for  me,"  she  added  with 
bitterness. 

Palliser  laughed  softly. 

"But  very  often  you  have  been  too  clever  for  her,"  he  sug 
gested.  "  For  my  part,  I  don't  quite  see  how  you  got  her 
here." 

Lady  Mallowe  became  not  almost,  but  entirely,  candid. 

"Upon  the  whole,  I  don't  quite  know  myself.  I  believe  she 
really  came  for  some  mysterious  reason  of  her  own." 

"  That  is  rather  my  impression,"  said  Palliser.  "  She  has 
got  something  up  her  sleeve,  and  so  has  he." 

"  He !  "  Lady  Mallowe  quite  ejaculated  the  word.  "  She  al 
ways  has.  That 's  her  abominable  secretive  way.  But  he ! 
T.  Tembarom  with  something  up  his  sleeve !  One  can't  imagine 
it." 

"  Almost  everybody  has.  I  found  that  out  long  years  ago," 
said  Palliser,  looking  at  his  cigar  end  again  as  if  consulting  it. 
"  Since  I  arrived  at  the  conclusion,  I  always  take  it  for  granted, 
and  look  out  for  it.  I  've  become  rather  clever  in  following 
such  things  up,  and  I  have  taken  an  unusual  interest  in  T. 
Tembarom  from  the  first." 

Lady  Mallowe  turned  her  handsome  face,  much  softened  by 
an  enwreathing  gauze  scarf,  toward  him  anxiously. 

"  Do  you  think  his  depression,  or  whatever  it  is,  means  Joan  ?  " 
she  asked. 

"  If  he  is  depressed  by  her,  you  need  not  be  discouraged," 
smiled  Palliser.  "  The  time  to  lose  hope  would  be  when,  despite 
her  ingenuities,  he  became  entirely  cheerful.  But,"  he  added 
after  a  moment  of  pause,  "  I  have  an  idea  there  is  some  other 
little  thing." 

"  Do  you  suppose  that  some  young  woman  he  has  left  behind 
in  New  York  is  demanding  her  rights  ?  "  said  Lady  Mallowe, 


334  T.  TEMBAROM 

with  annoyance.  "  That  is  exactly  the  kind  of  thing  Joan  would 
like  to  hear,  and  so  entirely  natural.  Some  shop-girl  or  other." 

"  Quite  natural,  as  you  say ;  but  he  would  scarcely  be  running 
up  to  London  and  consulting  Scotland  Yard  about  her,"  Palliser 
answered. 

"  Scotland  Yard !  "  ejaculated  his  companion.  "  How  in  the 
world  did  you  find  that  out?" 

Captain  Palliser  did  not  explain  how  he  had  done  it.  Pre 
sumably  his  knowledge  was  due  to  the  adroitness  of  the  system 
of  "  following  such  things  up." 

"  Scotland  Yard  has  also  come  to  him,"  he  went  on.  "  Did 
you  chance  to  see  a  red-faced  person  who  spent  a  morning  with 
him  last  week?" 

"He  looked  like  a  butcher,  and  I  thought  he  might  be  one 
of  his  friends,"  Lady  Mallowe  said. 

"  I  recognized  the  man.  He  is  an  extremely  clever  detective, 
much  respected  for  his  resources  in  the  matter  of  following 
clues  which  are  so  attenuated  as  to  be  scarcely  clues  at  all." 

"  Clues  have  no  connection  with  Joan,"  said  Lady  Mallowe, 
still  more  annoyed.  "  All  London  knows  her  miserable  story." 

"Have  you — "  Captain  Palliser's  tone  was  thoughtful, 
" —  has  any  one  ever  seen  Mr.  Strangeways  ?  " 

"  No.  Can  you  imagine  anything  more  absurdly  romantic  ? 
A  creature  without  a  memory,  shut  up  in  a  remote  wing  of  a 
palace  like  this,  as  if  he  were  the  Man  with  the  Iron  Mask. 
Romance  is  not  quite  compatible  with  T.  Tembarom." 

"It  is  so  incongruous  that  it  has  entertained  me  to  think 
it  over  a  good  deal,"  remarked  Palliser.  "  He  leaves  everything 
to  one's  imagination.  All  one  knows  is  that  he  is  n't  a  relative ; 
that  he  is  n't  mad,  but  only  too  nervous  to  see  or  be  seen.  Queer 
situation.  I  've  found  there  is  always  a  reason  for  things ; 
the  queerer  they  are,  the  more  sure  it  is  that  there's  a  reason. 
What  is  the  reason  Strangeways  is  kept  here,  and  where  would 
a  detective  come  in  ?  Just  on  general  principles  I  'm  rather 
going  into  the  situation.  There's  a  reason,  and  it  would  be 
amusing  to  find  it  out.  Don't  you  think  so  ?  " 

He  spoke  casually,  and  Lady  Mallowe's  answer  was  casual, 
though  she  knew  from  experience  that  he  was  not  as  casual  as 


T.  TEMBAEOM  335 

he  chose  to  seem.  He  was  clever  enough  always  to  have  certain 
reasons  of  his  own  which  formulated  themselves  into  interests 
large  and  small.  He  knew  things  about  people  which  were 
useful.  Sometimes  quite  small  things  were  useful.  He  was 
always  well  behaved,  and  no  one  had  ever  accused  him  of 
bringing  pressure  to  bear;  but  it  was  often  possible  for  him 
to  sell  things  or  buy  things  or  bring  about  things  in  cir 
cumstances  which  would  have  presented  difficulties  to  other 
people.  Lady  Mallowe  knew  from  long  experience  all  about 
the  exigencies  of  cases  when  "needs  must,"  and  she  was  not 
critical.  Temple  Barholm  as  the  estate  of  a  distant  relative 
and  T.  Tembarom  as  its  owner  were  not  assets  to  deal  with 
indifferently.  When  a  man  made  a  respectable  living  out  of 
people  who  could  be  persuaded  to  let  you  make  investments  for 
them,  it  was  not  an  unbusinesslike  idea  to  be  in  the  position 
to  advise  an  individual  strongly. 

"It's  quite  natural  that  you  should  feel  an  interest,"  she 
answered.  "  But  the  romantic  stranger  is  too  romantic,  though 
I  will  own  Scotland  Yard  is  a  little  odd." 

"  Yes,  that  is  exactly  what  I  thought,"  said  Palliser. 

He  had  in  fact  thought  a  good  deal  and  followed  the  thing 
up  in  a  quiet,  amateur  way,  though  with  annoyingly  little 
result.  Occasionally  he  had  felt  rather  a  fool  for  his  pains, 
because  he  had  been  led  to  so  few  facts  of  importance  and 
had  found  himself  so  often  confronted  by  T.  Tembarom's 
entirely  frank  grin.  His  own  mental  attitude  was  not  a  com 
plex  one.  Lady  Mallowe's  summing  up  had  been  correct  enough 
on  the  whole.  Temple  Barholm  ought  to  be  a  substantial  asset, 
regarded  in  its  connection  with  its  present  owner.  Little  deal 
ings  in  stocks  —  sometimes  rather  large  ones  when  luck  was 
with  him  —  had  brought  desirable  returns  to  Captain  Palliser 
throughout  a  number  of  years.  Just  now  he  was  taking  an 
interest  in  a  somewhat  imposing  scheme,  or  what  might  prove 
an  imposing  one  if  it  were  managed  properly  and  presented  to 
the  right  persons.  If  T.  Tembarom  had  been  sufficiently  lured 
by  the  spirit  of  speculation  to  plunge  into  old  Hutchinson's 
affair,  as  he  evidently  had  done,  he  was  plainly  of  the  tempera- 


336  T.  TEMBAROM 

ment  attracted  by  the  game  of  chance.  There  had  been  no 
reason  but  that  of  temperament  which  could  have  led  him  to 
invest.  He  had  found  himself  suddenly  a  moneyed  man  and 
had  liked  the  game.  Never  having  so  much  as  heard  of  Little 
Ann  Hutchinson,  Captain  Palliser  not  unnaturally  argued  after 
this  wise.  There  seemed  no  valid  reason  why,  if  a  vague  in 
vention  had  allured,  a  less  vague  scheme,  managed  in  a  more 
businesslike  manner,  should  not.  This  Mexican  silver  and  cop 
per  mine  was  a  dazzling  thing  to  talk  about.  He  could  go  into 
details.  He  had,  in  fact,  allowed  a  good  deal  of  detail  to  trail 
through  Kis  conversation  at  times.  It  had  not  been  difficult  to 
accomplish  this  in  his  talks  with  Lady  Mallowe  in  his  host's 
presence.  Lady  Mallowe  was  always  ready  to  talk  of  mines, 
gold,  silver,  or  copper.  It  happened  at  times  that  one  could 
manage  to  secure  a  few  shares  without  the  actual  payment  of 
money.  There  were  little  hospitalities  or  social  amiabilities 
now  and  then  which  might  be  regarded  as  value  received.  So 
she  had  made  it  easy  for  Captain  Palliser  to  talk,  and  T. 
Tembarom  had  heard  much  which  would  have  been  of  in 
terest  to  the  kind  of  young  man  he  appeared  to  be.  Sometimes 
he  had  listened  absorbedly,  and  on  a  few  occasions  he  had  asked 
a  few  questions  which  laid  him  curiously  bare  in  his  role  of 
speculator.  If  he  had  no  practical  knowledge  of  the  ways  and 
means  of  great  mining  companies,  he  at  least  professed  none. 
At  all  events,  if  there  was  any  little  matter  he  preferred  to  keep 
to  himself,  there  was  no  harm  in  making  oneself  familiar  with 
its  aspect  and  significance.  A  man's  arguments,  so  far  as  he 
himself  is  concerned,  assume  the  character  with  which  his  own 
choice  of  adjectives  and  adverbs  labels  them.  That  is,  if  he 
labels  them.  The  most  astute  do  not.  Captain  Palliser  did  not. 
He  dealt  merely  with  reasoning  processes  which  were  applicable 
to  the  subject  in  hand,  whatsoever  its  nature.  He  was  a  prac 
tical  man  of  the  world  —  a  gentleman,  of  course.  It  was  neces 
sary  to  adjust  matters  without  romantic  hair-splitting.  It  was 
all  by  the  way. 

T.  Tembarom  had  at  the  outset  seemed  to  present,  so  to  speak, 
no  surface.     Palliser  had  soon  ceased  to  be  at  all  sure  that  his 


T.  TEMBAEOM  337 

social  ambitions  were  to  be  relied  on  as  a  lever.  Besides  which, 
when  the  old  Duke  of  Stone  took  delighted  possession  of  him, 
dined  with  him,  drove  with  him,  sat  and  gossiped  with  him  by 
the  hour,  there  was  not  much  one  could  offer  him.  Strange- 
ways  had  at  first  meant  only  eccentricity.  A  little  later  he  had 
occasionally  faintly  stirred  curiosity,  and  perhaps  the  fact  that 
Burrill  enjoyed  him  as  a  grievance  and  a  mystery  had  stimulated 
the  stirring.  The  veriest  chance  had  led  him  to  find  himself  re 
garding  the  opening  up  of  possible  vistas. 

From  a  certain  window  in  a  certain  wing  of  the  house  a 
much-praised  view  was  to  be  seen.  Nothing  was  more  natural 
than  that  on  the  occasion  of  a  curious  sunset  Palliser  should, 
in  coming  from  his  room,  decide  to  take  a  look  at  it.  As  he 
passed  through  a  corridor  Pearson  came  out  of  a  room  near 
him. 

"  How  is  Mr.  Strangeways  to-day  ?  "  Palliser  asked. 

"  Not  quite  so  well,  I  am  afraid,  sir/'  was  the  answer. 

"  Sorry  to  hear  it,"  replied  Palliser,  and  passed  on. 

On  his  return  he  walked  somewhat  slowly  down  the  corridor. 
As  he  turned  into  it  he  thought  he  heard  the  murmur  of  voices. 
One  was  that  of  T.  Tembarom,  and  he  was  evidently  using 
argument.  It  sounded  as  if  he  were  persuading  some  one  to 
agree  with  "him,  and  the  persuasion  was  earnest.  He  was  not 
arguing  with  Pearson  or  a  housemaid.  Why  was  he  arguing 
with  his  pensioner  ?  His  voice  was  as  low  as  it  was  eager,  and 
the  other  man's  replies  were  not  to  be  heard.  Only  just  after 
Palliser  had  passed  the  door  there  broke  out  an  appeal  which 
was  a  sort  of  cry. 

"  No !  My  God,  no !  Don't  send  me  away  !  Don't  send  me 
away !  " 

One  could  not,  even  if  so  inclined,  stand  and  listen  near  a 
door  while  servants  might  chance  to  be  wandering  about.  Palli 
ser  went  on  his  way  with  a  sense  of  having  been  slightly 
startled. 

"  He  wants  to  get  rid  of  him,  and  the  fellow  is  giving  him 
trouble,"  he  said  to  himself.  "  That  voice  is  not  American. 
Not  in  the  least."  It  set  him  thinking  and  observing.  When 


338  T.  TEMBAROM 

Tembarom  wore  the  look  which  was  not  a  look  of  depression, 
but  of  something  more  puzzling,  he  thought  that  he  could  guess 
at  its  reason.  By  the  time  he  talked  with  Lady  Mallowe  he 
had  gone  much  further  than  he  chose  to  let  her  know. 


CHAPTEE  XXVIII 


HE  popularity  of  Captain  Palliser's  story 
of  the  "Ladies"  had  been  great  at  the 
outset,  but  with  the  passage  of  time  it  had 
oddly  waned.  This  had  resulted  from 
the  story's  ceasing  to  develop  itself,  as  the 
simplest  intelligence  might  have  antici 
pated,  by  means  of  the  only  person  cap 
able  of  its  proper  development.  The 
person  in  question  was  of  course  T.  Tem- 
barom.  Expectations,  amusing  expecta 
tions,  of  him  had  been  raised,  and  he  had 
singularly  failed  in  the  fulfilling  of  them. 
The  neighborhood  had,  so  to  speak,  stood  upon  tiptoe, —  the 
feminine  portion  of  it,  at  least, —  looking  over  shoulders  to  get 
the  first  glimpses  of  what  would  inevitably  take  place. 

As  weeks  flew  by,  the  standing  on  tiptoe  became  a  thing  of 
the  past.  The  whole  thing  flattened  out  most  disappointingly. 
No  attack  whatever  was  made  upon  the  "Ladies."  That  the 
Duke  of  Stone  had  immensely  taken  up  Mr.  Temple  Barholm 
had  of  course  resulted  in  his  being  accepted  in  such  a  manner 
as  gave  him  many  opportunities  to  encounter  one  and  all.  He 
appeared  at  dinners,  teas,  and  garden  parties.  Miss  Alicia, 
whom  he  had  in  some  occult  manner  impressed  upon  people 
until  they  found  themselves  actually  paying  a  sort  of  court  to 
her,  was  always  his  companion. 

"  One  realizes  one  cannot  possibly  leave  her  out  of  anything," 
had  been  said.  "  He  has  somehow  established  her  as  if  she  were 
his  mother  or  his  aunt  —  or  his  interpreter.  And  such  clothes, 
my  dear,  one  doesn't  behold.  Worth  and  Paquin  and  Doucet 
must  go  sleepless  for  weeks  to  invent  them.  They  are  without 
a  flaw  in  shade  or  line  or  texture."  Which  was  true,  because 

339 


340  T.  TEMBAEOM 

Mrs.  Hellish  of  the  Bond  Street  shop  had  become  quite  obsessed 
by  her  idea  and  committed  extravagances  Miss  Alicia  offered  up 
contrite  prayer  to  atone  for,  while  Tembarom,  simply  chortling 
in  his  glee,  signed  checks  to  pay  for  their  exquisite  embodiment. 
That  he  was  not  reluctant  to  avail  himself  of  social  opportunities 
was  made  manifest  by  the  fact  that  he  never  refused  an  invita 
tion.  He  appeared  upon  any  spot  to  which  hospitality  bade  him, 
and  unashamedly  placed  himself  on  record  as  a  neophyte  upon 
almost  all  occasions.  His  well-cut  clothes  began  in  time  to  wear 
more  the  air  of  garments  belonging  to  him,-  but  his  hat  made 
itself  remarked  by  its  trick  of  getting  pushed  back  on  his  head 
or  tilted  on  side,  and  his  New  York  voice  and  accent  rang  out 
sharp  and  finely  nasal  in  the  midst  of  low-pitched,  throaty,  or 
mellow  English  enunciations.  He  talked  a  good  deal  at  times 
because  he  found  himself  talked  to  by  people  who  either  wanted 
to  draw  him  out  or  genuinely  wished  to  hear  the  things  he 
would  be  likely  to  say. 

That  the  hero  of  Palliser's  story  should  so  comport  himself 
as  to  provide  either  diversion  or  cause  for  haughty  displeasure 
would  have  been  only  a  natural  outcome  of  his  ambitions.  In 
a  brief  period  of  time,  however,  every  young  woman  who  might 
have  expected  to  find  herself  an  object  of  such  ambitions  real 
ized  that  his  methods  of  approach  and  attack  were  not  marked 
by  the  usual  characteristics  of  aspirants  of  his  class.  He  evi 
dently  desired  to  see  and  be  seen.  He  presented  himself,  as  it 
were,  for  inspection  and  consideration,  but  while  he  was  at 
tentive,  he  did  not  press  attentions  upon  any  one.  He  did  not 
make  advances  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  He  never 
essayed  flattering  or  even  admiring  remarks.  He  said  queer 
things  at  which  one  often  could  not  help  but  laugh,  but  he 
somehow  wore  no  air  of  saying  them  with  the  intention  of  offer 
ing  them  as  witticisms  which  might  be  regarded  as  allurements. 
He  did  not  ogle,  he  did  not  simper  or  shuffle  about  nervously  and 
turn  red  or  pale,  as  eager  and  awkward  youths  have  a  habit 
of  doing  under  the  stress  of  unrequited  admiration.  In  the 
presence  of  a  certain  slightingness  of  treatment,  which  he  at 
the  outset  met  with  not  infrequently,  he  conducted  himself  with 
a  detached  good  nature  which  seemed  to  take  but  small  account 


T.   TEMBAEOM  341 

of  attitudes  less  unoffending  than  his  own.  When  the  slight- 
ingness  disappeared  from  sheer  lack  of  anything  to  slight,  he 
did  not  change  his  manner  in  any  degree. 

"  He  is  not  in  the  least  forward,"  Beatrice  Talchester  said, 
the  time  arriving  when  she  and  her  sisters  occasionally  talked 
him  over  with  their  special  friends,  the  Granthams,  "  and  he  is 
not  forever  under  one's  feet,  as  the  pushing  sort  usually  is. 
Do  you  remember  those  rich  people  from  the  place  they  called 
Troy  —  the  ones  who  took  Burnaby  for  a  year  —  and  the  awful 
eldest  son  who  perpetually  invented  excuses  for  calling,  bringing 
books  and  ridiculous  things  ?  " 

"  This  one  never  makes  an  excuse,"  Amabel  Grantham  put 
in. 

"  But  he  never  declines  an  invitation.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  he  wants  to  see  people,"  said  Lady  Honora,  with  the  pretty 
little  nose  and  the  dimples.  She  had  ceased  to  turn  up  the 
pretty  little  nose,  and  she  showed  a  dimple  as  she  added: 
"  Gwynedd  is  tremendously  taken  with  him.  She  is  teaching 
him  to  play  croquet.  They  spend  hours  together." 

"  He 's  beginning  to  play  a  pretty  good  game,"  said  Gwynedd. 
"  He  's  not  stupid,  at  all  events." 

"  I  believe  you  are  the  first  choice,  if  he  is  really  choosing," 
Amabel  Grantham  decided.  "  I  should  like  to  ask  you  a  ques 
tion." 

"  Ask  it,  by  all  means,"  said  Gwynedd. 

"  Does  he  ever  ask  you  to  show  him  how  to  hold  his  mallet, 
and  then  do  idiotic  things,  such  as  managing  to  touch  your 
hand  ?  " 

"  Never/'  was  Gwynedd's  answer.  "  The  young  man  from 
Troy  used  to  do  it,  and  then  beg  pardon  and  turn  red." 

"  I  don't  understand  him,  or  I  don't  understand  Captain 
Palliser's  story,"  Amabel  Grantham  argued.  "  Lucy  and  I  are 
quite  out  of  the  running,  but  I  honestly  believe  that  he  takes 
as  much  notice  of  us  as  he  does  of  any  of  you.  If  he  has  inten 
tions,  he  '  does  n't  act  the  part,'  which  is  pure  New  York  of  the 
first  water." 

"  He  said,  however,  that  the  things  that  mattered  were  not 
only  titles,  but  looks.  He  asked  how  many  of  us  were  '  lookers/ 


343  T.  TEMBAKOM 

Don't  be  modest,  Amabel.  Neither  you  nor  Lucy  are  out  of 
the  running/'  Beatrice  amiably  suggested. 

"Ladies  first,"  commented  Amabel,  pertly.  There  was  no 
objection  to  being  supported  in  one's  suspicion  that,  after  all, 
one  was  a  "looker." 

"There  may  be  a  sort  of  explanation,"  Honora  put  the  idea 
forward  somewhat  thoughtfully.  "  Captain  Palliser  insists  that 
he  is  much  shrewder  than  he  seems.  Perhaps  he  is  cautious, 
and  is  looking  us  all  over  before  he  commits  himself." 

"He  is  a  Temple  Barholm,  after  all,"  said  Gwynedd,  with 
boldness.  "  He  's  rather  good  looking.  He  has  the  nicest  white 
teeth  and  the  most  cheering  grin  I  ever  saw,  and  he 's  as  *  rich 
as  grease  is/  as  I  heard  a  housemaid  say  one  day.  I  'm  getting 
quite  resigned  to  his  voice,  or  it  is  improving,  I  don't  know 
which.  If  he  only  knew  the  mere  A  B  C  of  ordinary  people 
like  ourselves,  and  he  committed  himself  to  me,  I  would  n't  lay 
my  hand  on  my  heart  and  say  that  one  might  not  think  him 
over." 

"  I  told  you  she  was  tremendously  taken  with  him,"  said  her 
sister.  "  It 's  come  to  this." 

"But,"  said  Lady  Gwynedd,  "he  is  not  going  to  commit 
himself  to  any  of  us,  incredible  as  it  may  seem.  The  one 
person  he  stares  at  sometimes  is  Joan  Fayre,  and  he  only  looks 
at  her  as  if  he  were  curious  and  would  n't  object  to  finding  out 
why  she  treats  him  so  outrageously.  He  is  n't  annoyed ;  he  's 
only  curious." 

"  He 's  been  adored  by  salesladies  in  New  York,"  said  Honora, 
"  and  he  can't  understand  it." 

"He's  been  liked"  Amabel  Grantham  summed  him  up. 
"  He 's  a  likable  thing.  He 's  even  rather  a  dear.  I  've  begun 
to  like  him  myself." 

"  I  hear  you  are  learning  to  play  croquet,"  the  Duke  of  Stone 
remarked  to  him  a  day  or  so  later.  "  How  do  you  like  it  ?  " 

"Lady  Gwynedd  Talchester  is  teaching  me,"  Tembarom  an 
swered.  "  I  'd  learn  to  iron  shirt-waists  if  she  would  give  me 
lessons.  She 's  one  of  the  two  that  have  dimples,"  he  added, 
reflection  in  his  tone.  "  I  guess  that  '11  count.  Should  n't  you 
think  it  would?" 


T.  TEMBAEOM  343 

"  Miss  Hutchinson  ?  "  queried  the  duke. 

Tembarom  nodded. 

"  Yes,  it 's  always  her,"  he  answered  without  a  ray  of  humor. 
"  I  just  want  to  stack  'em  up." 

"  You  are  doing  it,"  the  duke  replied  with  a  slightly  twisted 
mouth.  There  were,  in  fact,  moments  when  he  might  have 
fallen  into  fits  of  laughter  while  Tembarom  was  seriousness 
itself.  "  I  must,  however,  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that 
there  is  sometimes  in  your  manner  a  hint  of  a  businesslike 
pursuit  of  a  fixed  object  which  you  must  beware  of.  The  Lady 
Gwynedds  might  not  enjoy  the  situation  if  they  began  to  sus 
pect.  If  they  decided  to  flout  you, — 'to  throw  you  down/  I 
ought  to  say  —  where  would  little  Miss  Hutchinson  be  ?  " 

Tembarom  looked  startled  and  disturbed. 

"  Say,"  he  exclaimed,  "  do  I  ever  look  that  way  ?  I  must 
do  better  than  that.  Anyhow,  it  ain't  all  put  on.  I  'm  doing 
my  stunt,  of  course,  but  I  like  them.  They're  mighty  nice 
to  me  when  you  consider  what  they  're  up  against.  And  those 
two  with  the  dimples, —  Lady  Gwynned  and  Lady  Honora,  are 
just  peaches.  Any  fellow  might" — he  stopped  and  looked 
serious  again  — "  That 's  why  they  M  count,"  he  added. 

They  were  having  one  of  their  odd  long  talks  under  a  par 
ticularly  splendid  copper  beech  which  provided  the  sheltered 
out-of-door  corner  his  grace  liked  best.  When  they  took  their 
seats  together  in  this  retreat,  it  was  mysteriously  understood  that 
they  were  settling  themselves  down  to  enjoyment  of  their  own, 
and  must  not  be  disturbed. 

"  When  I  am  comfortable  and  entertained,"  Moffat,  the  house 
steward,  had  quoted  his  master  as  saying,  "  you  may  mention  it 
if  the  castle  is  in  flames;  but  do  not  annoy  me  with  excitement 
and  flurry.  Eing  the  bell  in  the  courtyard,  and  call  up  the 
servants  to  pass  buckets;  but  until  the  lawn  catches  fire,  I  must 
insist  on  being  left  alone." 

"What  dear  papa  talks  to  him  about,  and  what  he  talks 
about  to  dear  papa,"  Lady  Celia  had  more  than  once  murmured 
in  her  gently  remote,  high-nosed  way,  "  I  cannot  possibly  im 
agine.  Sometimes  when  I  have  passed  them  on  my  way  to  the 
croquet  lawn  I  have  really  seen  them  both  look  as  absorbed 


344  T.  TEMBAROM 

as  people  in  a  play.  Of  course  it  is  very  good  for  papa.  It 
has  had  quite  a  marked  effect  on  his  digestion.  But  isn't  it 
odd ! " 

"I  wish,"  Lady  Edith  remarked  almost  wistfully,  "that  I 
could  get  on  better  with  him  myself  conversationally.  But  I 
don't  know  what  to  talk  about,  and  it  makes  me  nervous." 

Their  father,  on  the  contrary,  found  in  him  unique  resources, 
and  this  afternoon  it  occurred  to  him  that  he  had  never  so  far 
heard  him  express  himself  freely  on  the  subject  of  Palliser.  If 
led  to  do  so,  he  would  probably  reveal  that  he  had  views  of  Cap 
tain  Palliser  of  which  he  might  not  have  been  suspected,  and  the 
manner  in  which  they  would  unfold  themselves  would  more 
than  probably  be  illuminating.  The  duke  was,  in  fact,  serenely 
sure  that  he  required  neither  warning  nor  advice,  and  he  had 
no  intention  of  offering  either.  He  wanted  to  hear  the  views. 

"  Do  you  know,"  he  said  as  he  stirred  his  tea,  "  I  've  been 
thinking  about  Palliser,  and  it  has  occurred  to  me  more  than 
once  that  I  should  like  to  hear  just  how  he  strikes  you?" 

"  What  I  got  on  to  first  was  how  I  struck  him,"  answered 
Tembarom,  with  a  reasonable  air.  "  That  was  dead  easy." 

There  was  no  hint  of  any  vaunt  of  superior  shrewdness.  His 
was  merely  the  level-toned  manner  of  an  observer  of  facts  in 
detail. 

"He  has  given  you  an  opportunity  of  seeing  a  good  deal  oA 
him,"  the  duke  added.  "What  do  you  gather  from  him  — 
unless  he  has  made  up  his  mind  that  you  shall  not  gather  any 
thing  at  all?" 

"  A  fellow  like  that  could  n't  fix  it  that  way,  however  much 
he  wanted  to,"  Tembarom  answered  again  reasonably.  "Just 
his  trying  to  do  it  would  give  him  away." 

"  You  mean  you  have  gathered  things  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  've  gathered  enough,  though  I  did  n't  go  after  it. 
It  hung  on  the  bushes.  Anyhow,  it  seemed  to  me  that  way.  I 
guess  you  run  up  against  that  kind  everywhere.  There's 
stacks  of  them  in  New  York  —  different  shapes  and  sizes." 

"  If  you  met  a  man  of  his  particular  shape  and  size  in  New 
York,  how  would  you  describe  him  ?  "  the  duke  asked. 

"I   should    never    have   met   him   when   I   was   there.     He 


T.  TEMBAKOM  345 

would  n't  have  come  my  way  He  'd  have  been  on  Wall  Street, 
doing  high-class  bucket-shop  business,  or  he  'd  have  had  a  swell 
office  selling  copper-mines  —  any  old  kind  of  mine  that  's  going 
to  make  ten  million  a  minute,  the  sort  of  deal  he  's  in  now. 
If  he  'd  been  the  kind  I  might  have  run  up  against,"  he  added 
with  deliberation,  "he  wouldn't  have  been  as  well  dressed  or 
as  well  spoken.  He'd  have  been  either  flashy  or  down  at 
heel.  You'd  have  called  him  a  crook." 

The  duke  seemed  pleased  with  his  tea  as,  after  having  sipped 
it,  he  put  it  down  on  the  table  at  his  side. 

"A  crook?"  he  repeated.  "I  wonder  if  that  word  is  alto 
gether  American  ?  " 

"  It 's  not  complimentary,  but  you  asked  me,"  said  Tembarom. 
"  But  I  don't  believe  you  asked  me  because  you  thought  I  was  n't 
on  to  him." 

"  Frankly  speaking,  no,"  answered  the  duke.  "  Does  he  talk 
to  you  about  the  mammoth  mines  and  the  rubber  forests  ?  " 

"  Say,  that 's  where  he  wins  out  with  me,"  Tembarom  replied 
admiringly.  "  He  gets  in  such  fine  work  that  I  switch  him  on 
to  it  whenever  I  want  cheering  up.  It  makes  me  sorter  forget 
things  that  worry  me  just  to  see  a  man  act  the  part  right  up 
to  the  top  notch  the  way  he  does  it.  The  very  way  his  clothes 
fit,  the  style  he's  got  his  hair  brushed,  and  that  swell,  careless 
lounge  of  his,  are  half  of  the  make-up.  You  see,  most  of  us 
couldn't  mistake  him  for  anything  else  but  just  what  he  looks 
like  —  a  gentleman  visiting  round  among  his  friends  and  a 
million  miles  from  wanting  to  butt  in  with  business.  The  thing 
that  first  got  me  interested  was  watching  how  he  slid  in  the  sort 
of  guff  he  wanted  you  to  get  worked  up  about  and  think  over. 
Why,  if  I'd  been  what  I  look  like  to  him,  he'd  have  had  my 
pile  long  ago,  and  he  would  n't  be  loafing  round  here  any 
more." 

"What  do  you  think  you  look  like  to  him?"  his  host  in 
quired. 

"  I  look  as  if  I  'd  eat  out  of  his  hand,"  Tembarom  answered, 
quite  unbiased  by  any  touch  of  wounded  vanity.  "  Why 
should  n't  I  ?  And  I  'm  not  trying  to  wake  him  up,  either.  I 
like  to  look  that  way  to  him  and  to  his  sort.  It  gives  me  a 


346  T.  TEMBAEOM 

chance  to  watch  and  get  wise  to  things.  He 's  a  high-school 
education  in  himself.  I  like  to  hear  him  talk.  I  asked  him  to 
come  and  stay  at  the  house  so  that  I  could  hear  him  talk." 

"  Did  he  introduce  the  mammoth  mines  in  his  first  call  ?  "  the 
duke  inquired. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  mean  that  kind  of  talk.  I  did  n't  know  how 
much  good  I  was  going  to  get  out  of  him  at  first.  But  he  was 
the  kind  I  hadn't  known,  and  it  seemed  like  he  was  part  of 
the  whole  thing  —  like  the  girls  with  title  that  Ann  said  I  must 
get  next  to.  And  an  easy  way  of  getting  next  to  the  man  kind 
was  to  let  him  come  and  stay.  He  wanted  to,  all  right.  I 
guess  that 's  the  way  he  lives  when  he 's  down  on  his  luck,  getting 
invited  to  stay  at  places.  Like  Lady  Mallowe,"  he  added,  quite 
without  prejudice. 

"You  do  sum  them  up,  don't  you?"  smiled  the  duke. 

"  "Well,  I  don't  see  how  I  could  help  it,"  he  said  impartially. 
"  They  're  printed  in  sixty-four  point  black-face,  seems  to  me." 

"What  is  that?"  the  duke  inquired  with  interest.  He 
thought  it  might  he  a  new  and  desirable  bit  of  slang.  "  I 
don't  know  that  one." 

"  Biggest  type  there  is,"  grinned  Tembarom.  "  It 's  the  kind 
that's  used  for  head-lines.  That's  newspaper-office  talk." 

"  Ah,  technical,  I  see.  What,  by  the  way,  is  the  smallest  let 
tering  called  ?  "  his  grace  followed  up. 

"  Brilliant,"  answered  Tembarom. 

"You,"  remarked  the  duke,  "are  not  printed  in  sixty-four- 
point  black-face  so  far  as  they  are  concerned.  You  are  not 
even  brilliant.  They  don't  find  themselves  able  to  sum  you  up. 
That  fact  is  one  of  my  recreations." 

"I'll  tell  you  why,"  Tembarom  explained  with  his  clearly 
unprejudiced  air.  "  There 's  nothing  much  about  me  to  sum  up, 
anyhow.  I  'm  too  sort  of  plain  sailing  and  ordinary.  I  'm 
not  making  for  anywhere  they  'd  think  I  'd  want  to  go.  I  'm 
not  hiding  anything  they  'd  be  sure  I  'd  want  to  hide." 

"  By  the  Lord !  you  're  not ! "  exclaimed  the  duke. 

"When  I  first  came  here,  every  one  of  them  had  a  fool  idea 
I  'd  want  to  pretend  I  'd  never  set  eyes  on  a  newsboy  or  a  boot 
black,  and  that  I  could  n't  find  my  way  in  New  York  when  I  got 


T.  TEMBAKOM  347 

off  Fifth  Avenue.  I  used  to  see  them  thinking  they'd  got  to 
look  as  if  they  believed  it,  if  they  wanted  to  keep  next.  When 
I  just  let  out  and  showed  I  didn't  care  a  darn  and  hadn't 
sense  enough  to  know  that  it  mattered,  it  nearly  made  them 
throw  a  fit.  They  had  to  turn  round  and  fix  their  faces  all 
over  again  and  act  like  it  was  '  interesting.'  That 's  what  Lady 
Mallowe  calls  it.  She  says  it 's  so  '  interesting ! ' " 
"It  is,"  commented  the  duke. 

"Well,  you  know  that,  but  she  doesn't.  Not  on  your  life! 
I  guess  it  makes  her  about  sick  to  think  of  it  and  have  to  play 
that  it 's  just  what  you  'd  want  all  your  men  friends  to  have 
done.  Now,  Palliser  — "  he  paused  and  grinned  again.  He  was 
sitting  in  a  most  casual  attitude,  his  hands  clasped  round  one 
up-raised  knee,  which  he  nursed,  balancing  himself.  It  was  a 
position  of  informal  ease  which  had  an  air  of  assisting  enjoy 
able  reflection. 

"Yes,  Palliser?  Don't  let  us  neglect  Palliser,"  his  host 
encouraged  him. 

"  He 's  in  a  worse  mix-up  than  the  rest  because  he 's  got 
more  to  lose.  If  he  could  work  this  mammoth-mine  song  and 
dance  with  the  right  people,  there 'd  be  money  enough  in  it  to 
put  him  on. Easy  Street.  That's  where  he's  aiming  for.  The 
company  's  just  where  it  has  to  have  a  boost.  It 's  just  got  to. 
If  it  does  n't,  there  '11  be  a  bust  up  that  may  end  in  fitting  out 
a  high-toned  promoter  or  so  in  a  striped  yellow-and-black  Jersey 
suit  and  set  him  to  breaking  rocks  or  playing  with  oakum. 
I  '11  tell  you,  poor  old  Palliser  gets  the  Willies  sometimes  after 
he's  read  his  mail.  He  turns  the  color  of  ecru  baby  Irish. 
That 's  a  kind  of  lace  I  got  a  dressmaker  to  tell  me  about  when 
I  wrote  up  receptions  and  dances  for  the  Sunday  Earth.  Ecru 
baby  Irish  —  that 's  Palliser's  color  after  he 's  read  his  letters." 
"  I  dare  say  the  fellow 's  in  a  devil  of  a  mess,  if  the  truth 
were  known,"  the  duke  said. 

"And  here's  'T.  T.,'  hand-made  and  hand-painted  for  the 
part  of  the  kind  of  sucker  he  wants."  T.  Tembarom's  manner 
was  almost  sympathetic  in  its  appreciation.  "  I  can  tell  you 
I  'm  having  a  real  good  time  with  Palliser.  It  looked  like  I  'd 
just  dropped  from  heaven  when  he  first  saw  me.  If  he  'd  been 


348  T.  TEMBAROM 

the  praying  kind,  I  'd  have  been  just  the  sort  he  'd  have  prayed 
for  when  he  said  his  *  Now-I-lay-me's '  before  he  went  to  bed. 
There  was  n't  a  chance  in  a  hundred  that  I  was  n't  a  fool  that 
had  his  head  swelled  so  that  he  'd  swallow  any  darned  thing  if 
you  handed  it  to  him  smooth  enough.  First  time  he  called  he 
asked  me  a  lot  of  questions  about  New  York  business.  That 
was  pretty  smart  of  him.  He  wanted  to  find  out,  sort  of  care 
less,  how  much  I  knew  —  or  how  little." 

The  duke  was  leaning  back  luxuriously  in  his  chair  and  gazing 
at  him  as  he  might  have  gazed  at  the  work  of  an  old  master  of 
which  each  line  and  shade  was  of  absorbing  interest. 

"  I  can  see  him,"  he  said.     "  I  can  see  him." 

"  He  found  out  I  knew  nothing,"  Tembarom  continued. 
"And  what  was  to  hinder  him  trying  to  teach  me  something, 
by  gee !  Nothing  on  top  of  the  green  earth.  I  was  there, 
waiting  with  my  mouth  open,  it  seemed  like." 

"And  he  has  tried  —  in  his  best  manner?"  said  his  grace. 

"  What  he  has  n't  tried  would  n't  be  worthy  trying,"  Tem 
barom  answered  cheerfully.  "  Sometimes  it  seems  like  a  shame 
to  waste  it.  I  've  got  so  I  know  how  to  start  him  when  he 
does  n't  know  I  'm  doing  it.  I  tell  you,  he  's  fine.  Gentlemanly 
—  that 's  his  way,  you  know.  High-toned  friend  that  just  hap 
pens  to  know  of  a  good  thing  and  thinks  enough  of  you  in  a 
sort  of  reserved  way  to  feel  like  it's  a  pity  not  to  give  you 
a  chance  to  come  in  on  the  ground  floor,  if  you've  got  the 
sense  to  see  the  favor  he 's  friendly  enough  to  do  you.  It 's 
such  a  favor  that  it  'd  just  disgust  a  man  if  you  could  possibly 
turn  it  down.  But  of  course  you  're  to  take  it  or  leave  it.  It 's 
not  to  his  interest  to  push  it.  Lord,  no !  Whatever  you  did  his 
way  is  that  he  'd  not  condescend  to  say  a  darned  word.  High- 
toned  silence,  that's  all." 

The  Duke  of  Stone  was  chuckling  very  softly.  His  chuckles 
rather  broke  his  words  when  he  spoke. 

"  By  —  by  —  Jove !  "  he  said.  "  You  —  you  do  see  it,  don't 
you?  You  do  see  it." 

Tembarom  nursed  his  knee  comfortably. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "it's  what  keeps  me  up.  You  know  a  lot 
more  about  me  than  any  one  else  does,  but  there's  a  whole 


T.  TEMBAKOM  349 

raft  of  things  I  think  about  that  I  couldn't  hang  round  any 
man's  neck.  If  I  tried  to  hang  them  round  yours,  you  'd  know 
that  I  would  be  having  a  hell  of  a  time  here,  if  I  'd  let  myself 
think  too  much.  If  I  did  n't  see  it,  as  you  call  it,  if  I  did  n't 
see  so  many  things,  I  might  begin  to  get  sorry  for  myself. 
There  was  a  pause  of  a  second.  "  Gee  1 "  he  said,  "  Gee !  this 
not  hearing  a  thing  about  Ann !  — " 

"  Good  Lord !  my  dear  fellow,"  the  duke  said  hastily,  "  I  know. 
I  know." 

Tembarom  turned  and  looked  at  him. 

"You've  been  there,"  he  remarked.  "You've  been  there,  I 
bet." 

"  Yes,  1 7ve  been  there,"  answered  the  duke.  "  I  've  been 
there  —  and  come  back.  But  while  it's  going  on  —  you  have 
just  described  it.  A  man  can  have  a  hell  of  a  time." 

"  He  can,"  Tembarom  admitted  unreservedly.  "  He 's  got  to 
keep  going  to  stand  it.  Well,  Strangeways  gives  me  some  work 
to  do.  And  I  've  got  Palliser.  He 's  a  little  sunbeam." 

A  man-servant  approaching  to  suggest  a  possible  need  of  hot 
tea  started  at  hearing  his  grace  break  into  a  sudden  and  plainly 
involuntary  crow  of  glee.  He  had  not  heard  that  one  before 
either.  Palliser  as  a  little  sunbeam  brightening  the  pathway 
of  T.  Tembarom,  was,  in  the  particular  existing  circumstances, 
all  that  could  be  desired  of  fine  humor.  It  somewhat  recalled 
the  situation  of  the  "  Ladies  "  of  the  noble  houses  of  Pevensy, 
Talchester,  and  Stone  unconsciously  passing  in  review  for  the 
satisfaction  of  little  Miss  Hutchinson.  Tembarom  laughed  a 
little  himself,  but  he  went  on  with  a  sort  of  seriousness: 

"  There  's  one  thing  sure  enough.  I  've  got  on  to  it  by  listen 
ing  and  working  out  what  he  would  do  by  what  he  does  n't  know 
he  says.  If  he  could  put  the  screws  on  me  in  any  way,  he 
would  n't  hold  back.  It  'd  be  all  quite  polite  and  gentlemanly, 
but  he'd  do  it  all  the  samee.  And  he's  dead-sure  that  every 
body's  got  something  they'd  like  to  hide  —  .or  get.  That's 
what  he  works  things  out  from." 

"  Does  he  think  you  have  something  to  hide  —  or  get  ?  "  the 
duke  inquired  rather  quickly. 

"  He  's  sure  of  it.     But  he  does  n't  know  yet  whether  it 's 


350  T.  TEMBAKOM 

get  or  hide.  He  noses  about.  Pearson 's  seen  him.  He  asks 
questions  and  plays  he  ain't  doing  it  and  ain't  interested,  any 
how." 

"He  doesn't  like  yon,  he  doesn't  like  you,"  the  duke 
said  rather  thoughtfully.  "  He  has  a  way  of  conveying  that 
you  are  far  more  subtle  than  you  choose  to  look.  He  is  given 
to  enlarging  on  the  fact  that  an  air  of  entire  frankness  is  one 
of  the  chief  assets  of  certain  promoters  of  huge  American 
schemes." 

Tembarom  smiled  the  smile  of  recognition. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "it  looks  like  that's  a  long  way  round, 
does  n't  it  ?  But  it 's  not  far  to  T.  T.  when  you  want  to  hitch 
on  the  connection.  Anyhow,  that 's  the  way  he  means  it  to 
look.  If  ever  I  was  suspected  of  being  in  any  mix-up,  every 
body  would  remember  he'd  said  that." 

"  It 's  very  amusin',"  said  the  duke.     "  It 's  very  anmsin'." 

They  had  become  even  greater  friends  and  intimates  by  this 
time  than  the  already  astonished  neighborhood  suspected  them 
of  being.  That  they  spent  much  time  together  in  an  amazing 
degree  of  familiarity  was  the  talk  of  the  country,  in  fact, 
one  of  the  most  frequent  resources  of  conversation.  Everybody 
endeavored  to  find  reason  for  the  situation,  but  none  had  been 
presented  which  seemed  of  sufficiently  logical  convincingness. 
The  duke  was  eccentric,  of  course.  That  was  easy  to  hit  upon. 
He  was  amiably  perverse  and  good-humoredly  cynical.  He  was 
of  course  immensely  amused  by  the  incongruity  of  the  ac 
quaintance.  This  being  the  case,  why  exactly  he  had  never 
before  chosen  for  himself  a  companion  equally  out  of  the  picture 
it  was  not  easy  to  explain.  There  were  plow-boys  or  clerks 
out  of  provincial  shops  who  would  surely  have  been  quite  as 
incongruous  when  surrounded  by  ducal  splendors.  He  might 
have  got  a  young  man  from  Liverpool  or  Blackburn  who  would 
have  known  as  little  of  polite  society  as  Mr.  Temple  Barholm; 
there  were  few,  of  course,  who  could  know  less.  But  he  had 
never  shown  the  faintest  desire  to  seek  one  out.  Palliser, 
it  is  true,  suggested  it  was  Tembarom's  "cheek"  which  stood 
him  in  good  stead.  The  young  man  from  behind  the  counter 
in  a  Liverpool  or  Blackburn  shop  would  probably  have  been 


T.   TEMBAROM  351 

frightened  to  death  and  afraid  to  open  his  mouth  in  self-revela 
tion,  whereas  Temple  Barholm  was  so  entirely  a  bounder  that 
he  did  not  know  he  was  one,  and  was  ready  to  make  an  ass  of 
himself  to  any  extent.  The  frankest  statement  of  the  situation, 
if  any  one  had  so  chosen  to  put  it,  would  have  been  that  he  was 
regarded  as  a  sort  of  court  fool  without  cap  or  bells. 

No  one  was  aware  of  the  odd  confidences  which  passed  be 
tween  the  weirdly  dissimilar  pair.  No  one  guessed  that  the  old 
peer  sat  and  listened  to  stories  of  a  red-headed,  slim-bodied 
girl  in  a  dingy  New  York  boarding-house,  that  he  liked  them 
sufficiently  to  encourage  their  telling,  that  he  had  made  a  mental 
picture  of  a  certain  look  in  a  pair  of  maternally  yearning  and 
fearfully  convincing  round  young  eyes,  that  he  knew  the  bur 
nished  fullness  and  glow  of  the  red  hair  until  he  could  imagine 
the  feeling  of  its  texture  and  abundant  warmth  in  the  hand. 
And  this  subject  was  only  one  of  many.  And  of  others  they 
talked  with  interest,  doubt,  argument,  speculation,  holding  a 
living  thrill. 

The  tap  of  croquet  mallets  sounded  hollow  and  clear  from 
the  sunken  lawn  below  the  mass  of  shrubs  between  them  and 
the  players  as  the  duke  repeated. 

"It's  hugely  amusin',"  dropping  his  "g,"  which  was  not 
one  of  his  usual  affectations. 

"  Confound  it ! "  he  said  next,  wrinkling  the  thin,  fine  skin 
round  his  eyes  in  a  speculative  smile,  "  I  wish  I  had  had  a  son 
of  my  own  just  like  you." 

All  of  Tembarom's  white  teeth  revealed  themselves. 

"  I  'd  have  liked  to  have  been  in  it,"  he  replied,  "  but  I 
should  n't  have  been  like  me." 

"  Yes,  you  would."  The  duke  put  the  tips  of  his  fingers  del 
icately  together.  "  You  are  of  the  kind  which  in  all  circum 
stances  is  like  itself."  He  looked  about  him,  taking  in  the 
turreted,  majestic  age  and  mass  of  the  castle.  "You  would 
have  been  born  here.  You  would  have  learned  to  ride  your 
pony  down  the  avenue.  You  would  have  gone  to  Eton  and  to 
Oxford.  I  don't  think  you  would  have  learned  much,  but 
you  would  have  been  decidedly  edifying  and  companionable. 
You  would  have  had  a  sense  of  humor  which  would  have  made 


352  T.  TEMBAKOM 

you  popular  in  society  and  at  court.  A  young  fellow  who  makes 
those  people  laugh  holds  success  in  his  hand.  They  want  to 
be  made  to  laugh  as  much  as  I  do.  Good  God!  how  they  are 
obliged  to  be  bored  and  behave  decently  under  it!  You  would 
have  seen  and  known  more  things  to  be  humorous  about  than 
you  know  now.  I  don't  think  you  would  have  been  a  fool  about 
women,  but  some  of  them  would  have  been  fools  about  you, 
because  you've  got  a  way.  I  had  one  myself.  It's  all  the 
more  dangerous  because  it's  possibility  suggesting  without  be 
ing  sentimental.  A  friendly  young  fellow  always  suggests  pos 
sibilities  without  being  aware  of  it. 

"Would  I  have  been  Lord  Temple  Temple  Barholm  or  some 
thing  of  that  sort  ?  "  Tembarom  asked. 

"  You  would  have  been  the  Marquis  of  Belcarey,"  the  duke 
replied,  looking  him  over  thoughtfully,  "  and  your  name  would 
probably  have  been  Hugh  Lawrence  Gilbert  Henry  Charles  Adel- 
bert,  or  words  to  that  effect." 

"A  regular  six-shooter,"  said  Tembarom. 

The  duke  was  following  it  up  with  absorption  in  his  eyes. 

"  You  'd  have  gone  into  the  Guards,  perhaps,"  he  said,  "  and 
drill  would  have  made  you  carry  yourself  better.  You're  a 
good  height.  You'd  have  been  a  well-set-up  fellow.  I  should 
have  been  rather  proud  of  you.  I  can  see  you  riding  to  the 
palace  with  the  rest  of  them,  sabres  and  chains  clanking  and 
glittering  and  helmet  with  plumes  streaming.  By  Jove!  I 
don't  wonder  at  the  effect  they  have  on  nursery-maids.  On  a 
sunny  morning  in  spring  they  suggest  knights  in  a  fairytale." 

"  I  should  have  liked  it  all  right  if  I  had  n't  been  born  in 
Brooklyn,"  grinned  Tembarom.  "  But  that  starts  you  out  in  a 
different  way.  Do  you  think,  if  I  'd  been  born  the  Marquis 
of  Bel  —  what 's  his  name  —  I  should  have  been  on  to  Palliser's 
little  song  and  dance,  and  had  as  much  fun  out  of  it?" 

"  On  my  soul,  I  believe  you  would,"  the  duke  answered. 
"  Brooklyn  or  Stone  Hover  Castle,  I  'm  hanged  if  you  would  n't 
have  been  you." 


CHAPTER  XXIX 


FTEE  this  came  a  pause.  Each  man  sat  think 
ing  his  own  thoughts,  which,  while  marked 
with  difference  in  form,  were  doubtless  subtly 
alike  in  the  line  they  followed.  During  the 
silence  T.  Tembarom  looked  out  at  the  late 
afternoon  shadows  lengthening  themselves  in 
darkening  velvet  across  the  lawns. 
At  last  he  said : 

"  I  never  told  you  that  I  've  been  reading 
some  of  the  'steen  thousand  books  in  the  library.  I  started  it 
about  a  month  ago.  And  somehow  they've  got  me  going." 

The  slightly  lifted  eyebrows  of  his  host  did  not  express  surprise 
so  much  as  questioning  interest.  This  man,  at  least,  had  dis 
covered  that  one  need  find  no  cause  for  astonishment  in  any  dis 
covery  that  he  had  been  doing  a  thing  for  some  time  for  some 
reason  or  through  some  prompting  of  his  own,  and  had  said  noth 
ing  whatever  about  it  until  he  was  what  he  called  "good  and 
ready."  When  he  was  "  good  and  ready "  he  usually  revealed 
himself  to  the  duke,  but  he  was  not  equally  expansive  with  oth 
ers. 

"No,  you  have  not  mentioned  it,"  his  grace  answered,  and 
laughed  a  little.  "You  frequently  fail  to  mention  things. 
When  first  we  knew  each  other  I  used  to  wonder  if  you  were 
naturally  a  secretive  fellow ;  but  you  are  not.  You  always  have 
a  reason  for  your  silences." 

"It  took  about  ten  years  to  kick  that  into  me  —  ten  good 
years,  I  should  say."  T.  Tembarom  looked  as  if  he  were  looking 
backward  at  many  episodes  as  he  said  it.  "  Naturally,  I  guess, 
I  must  have  been  an  innocent,  blab-mouthed  kid.  I  meant  no 
harm,  but  I  just  did  n't  know.  Sometimes  it  looks  as  if  just  not 
knowing  is  about  the  worst  disease  you  can  be  troubled  with. 

353 


354  T.  TEMBAEOM 

But  if  you  don't  get  killed  first,  you  find  out  in  time  that  what 
you  've  got  to  hold  on  to  hard  and  fast  is  the  trick  of  '  saying 
nothing  and  sawing  wood."; 

The  duke  took  out  his  memorandum-book  and  began  to  write 
hastily.  T.  Tembarom  was  quite  accustomed  to  this.  He  even 
repeated  his  axiom  for  him, 

"  Say  nothing  and  saw  wood,"  he  said.  "  It 's  worth  writing 
down.  It  means  '  shut  your  mouth  and  keep  on  working.' '; 

"Thank  you,"  said  the  duke.  "It  is  worth  writing  down. 
Thank  you." 

"  I  did  not  talk  about  the  books  because  I  wanted  to  get  used 
to  them  before  I  began  to  talk,"  Tembarom  explained.  "  I 
wanted  to  get  somewhere.  I  'd  never  read  a  book  through  in 
my  life  before.  Never  wanted  to.  Never  had  one  and  never 
had  time.  When  night  came,  I  was  dog-tired  and  dog-ready  to 
drop  down  and  sleep." 

Here  was  a  situation  of  interest.  A  young  man  of  odd, 
direct  shrewdness,  who  had  never  read  a  book  through  in  his 
existence,  had  plunged  suddenly  into  the  extraordinarily  varied 
literary  resources  of  the  Temple  Barholm  library.  If  he  had 
been  a  fool  or  a  genius  one  might  have  guessed  at  the  impression 
made  on  him;  being  T.  Tembarom,  one  speculated  with  secret 
elation.  The  primitiveness  he  might  reveal,  the  profundities 
he  might  touch  the  surface  of,  the  unexpected  ends  he  might 
reach,  suggested  the  opening  of  vistas. 

"  I  have  often  thought  that  if  books  attracted  you  the  library 
would  help  you  to  get  through  a  good  many  of  the  hundred  and 
thirty-six  hours  a  day  you've  spoken  of,  and  get  through  them 
pretty  decently,"  commented  the  duke. 

"  That 's  what 's  happened,"  Tembarom  answered.  "  There  's 
not  so  many  now.  I  can  cut  'em  off  in  chunks." 

"How  did  it  begin?" 

He  listened  with  much  pleasure  while  Tembarom  told  him  how 
it  had  begun  and  how  it  had  gone  on. 

"I'd  been  having  a  pretty  bad  time  one  day.  Strangeways 
had  been  worse  —  a  darned  sight  worse  —  just  when  I  thought 
he  was  better.  I  'd  been  trying  to  help  him  to  think  straight ; 
and  suddenly  I  made  a  break,  somehow,  and  must  have  touched 


T.  TEMBAEOM  355 

exactly  the  wrong  spring.  It  seemed  as  if  I  set  him  nearly 
crazy.  I  had  to  leave  him  to  Pearson  right  away.  Then  it 
poured  rain  steady  for  about  eight  hours,  and  I  could  n't  get 
out  and  'take  a  walk/  Then  I  went  wandering  into  the  pic 
ture-gallery  and  found  Lady  Joan  there,  looking  at  Miles  Hugo. 
And  she  ordered  me  out,  or  blamed  near  it." 

"You  are  standing  a  good  deal/'  said  the  duke. 

"  Yes,  I  am  —  but  so  is  she."  He  set  his  hard  young  jaw 
and  nursed  his  knee,  staring  once  more  at  the  velvet  shadows. 
"  The  girl  in  the  book  I  picked  up  — "  he  began. 

"  The  first  book  ?  "  his  host  inquired. 

Tembarom  nodded. 

"  The  very  first.  I  was  smoking  my  pipe  at  night,  after  every 
one  else  had  gone  to  bed,  and  I  got  up  and  began  to  wander 
about  and  stare  at  the  names  of  the  things  on  the  shelves.  I 
was  thinking  over  a  whole  raft  of  things  —  a  whole  raft  of 
them  —  and  I  did  n't  know  I  was  doing  it,  until  something 
made  me  stop  and  read  a  name  again.  It  was  a  book  called 
'  Good-by,  Sweetheart,  Good-by/  and  it  hit  me  straight.  I  won 
dered  what  it  was  about,  and  I  wondered  where  old  Temple 
Barholm  had  fished  up  a  thing  like  that.  I  never  heard  he  was 
that  kind." 

"  He  was  a  cantankerous  old  brute,"  said  the  Duke  of  Stone 
with  candor,  "but  he  chanced  to  be  an  omnivorous  novel- 
reader.  Nothing  was  too  sentimental  for  him  in  his  later 
years." 

"  I  took  the  thing  out  and  read  it,"  Tembarom  went  on,  un 
easily,  the  emotion  of  his  first  novel-reading  stirring  him  as 
he  talked.  "It  kept  me  up  half  the  night,  and  I  hadn't 
finished  it  then.  I  wanted  to  know  the  end." 

"Benisons  upon  the  books  of  which  one  wants  to  know  the 
end !  "  the  duke  murmured. 

Tembarom's  interest  had  plainly  not  terminated  with  "the 
end."  Its  freshness  made  it  easily  revived.  There  was  a  hint 
of  emotional  indignation  in  his  relation  of  the  plot. 

"  It  was  about  a  couple  of  fools  who  were  dead  stuck  on  each 
other  —  dead.  There  was  no  mistake  about  that.  It  was  all 
real.  But  what  do  they  do  but  work  up  a  fool  quarrel  about 


356  T.   TEMBAROM 

nothing,  and  break  away  from  each  other.  There  was  a  lot  of 
stuff  about  pride.  Pride  be  damned !  How  's  a  man  going  to 
be  proud  and  put  on  airs  when  he  loves  a  woman?  How's  a 
woman  going  to  be  proud  and  stick  out  about  things  when  she 
loves  a  man  ?  At  least,  that 's  the  way  it  hit  me." 

"  That 's  the  way  it  hit  me  —  once,"  remarked  his  grace. 

"  There  is  only  once/7  said  Tembarom,  doggedly. 

"  Occasionally/'  said  his  host.     "  Occasionally." 

Tembarom  knew  what  he  meant. 

"  The  fellow  went  away,  and  neither  of  them  would  give  in. 
It's  queer  how  real  it  was  when  you  read  it.  You  were  right 
there  looking  on,  and  swallowing  hard  every  few  minutes  — 
though  you  were  as  mad  as  hops.  The  girl  began  to  die  —  slow 
—  and  lay  there  day  after  day,  longing  for  him  to  come  back, 
and  knowing  he  would  n't.  At  the  very  end,  when  there  was 
scarcely  a  breath  left  in  her,  a  young  fellow  who  was  crazy 
about  her  himself,  and  always  had  been,  put  out  after  the 
hard-headed  fool  to  bring  him  to  her  anyhow.  The  girl  had 
about  given  in  then.  And  she  lay  and  waited  hour  after  hour, 
and  the  youngster  came  back  by  himself.  He  couldn't  bring 
the  man  he  'd  gone  after.  He  found  him  getting  married  to  a 
nice  girl  he  did  n't  really  care  a  darn  for.  He  'd  sort  of  set  his 
teeth  and  done  it  —  just  because  he  was  all  in  and  down  and 
out,  and  a  fool.  The  girl  just  dropped  her  head  back  on  the 
pillow  and  lay  there,  dead !  What  do  you  think  of  that  ? " 
quite  fiercely.  "  I  guess  it  was  sentimental  all  right,  but  it  got 
you  by  the  throat." 

" '  Good-bye,  Sweetheart,  Good-bye/ "  his  grace  quoted. 
"  First-class  title.  We  are  all  sentimental.  And  that  was  the 
first,  was  it?" 

"  Yes,  but  it  was  n't  the  last.  I  began  to  read  the  others. 
I  've  been  reading  them  ever  since.  I  tell  you,  for  a  fellow 
that  knows  nothing  it's  an  easy  way  of  finding  out  a  lot  of 
things.  You  find  out  what  different  kinds  of  people  there  are, 
and  what  different  kinds  of  ways.  If  you  've  lived  in  one  place, 
and  been  up  against  nothing  but  earning  your  living,  you 
think  that 's  all  there  is  of  it  —  that  it 's  the  whole  thing.  But 
it  is  n't,  by  gee !  "  His  air  became  thoughtful.  "  I  've  begun 


T.  TEMBAROM  357 

to  kind  of  get  on  to  what  all  this  means" — glancing  about 
him  — "  to  you  people ;  and  how  a  fellow  like  T.  T.  must  look  to 
you.  I  've  always  sort  of  guessed,  but  reading  a  few  dozen 
novels  has  helped  me  to  see  why  it 's  that  way.  I  've  yelled 
right  out  laughing  over  it  many  a  time.  That  fellow  called 
Thackeray  —  I  can't  read  his  things  right  straight  through  — 
but  he  's  an  eye-opener." 

"  You  have  tried  nothing  lut  novels  ?  "  his  enthralled  hearer 
inquired. 

"  Not  yet.  I  shall  come  to  the  others  in  time.  I  'm  sort 
of  hungry  for  these  things  about  people.  It  's  the  ways  they  're 
different  that  gets  me  going.  There  was  one  that  stirred  me 
all  up  —  but  it  was  n't  like  that  first  one.  It  was  about  a 
man  " —  he  spoke  slowly,  as  if  searching  for  words  and  parallels 
— "well,  I  guess  he  was  one  of  the  early  savages  here.  It 
read  as  if  they  were  like  the  first  Indians  in  America,  only 
stronger  and  fiercer.  When  Palford  was  explaining  things  to 
me  he  'd  jerk  in  every  now  and  then  something  about  '  coming 
over  with  the  Conqueror '  or  being  here  e  before  the  Conqueror.' 
I  did  n't  know  what  it  meant.  I  found  out  in  this  book  I  'm 
telling  about.  It  gave  me  the  whole  thing  so  that  you  saw  it. 
Here  was  this  little  country,  with  no  one  in  it  but  these  first 
savage  fellows  it'd  always  belonged  to.  They  thought  it  was 
the  world."  There  was  a  humorous  sense  of  illumination  in 
his  half-laugh.  "  It  was  their  New  York,  by  jings,"  he  put  in. 
"  Their  little  old  New  York  that  they  'd  never  been  outside  of ! 
And  then  first  one  lot  slams  in,  and  then  another,  and  another, 
and  tries  to  take  it  from  them.  Julius  Csesar  was  the  first 
Mr.  Buttinski;  and  they  fought  like  hell.  They  were  fighters 
from  Fightersville,  anyhow.  They  fought  each  other,  took 
each  other's  castles  and  lands  and  wives  and  'jewelry  —  just  any 
old  thing  they  wanted.  The  only  jails  were  private  ones  meant 
for  their  particular  friends.  And  a  man  was  hung  only  when 
one  of  his  neighbors  got  mad  enough  at  him,  and  then  he  had 
to  catch  him  first  and  run  the  risk  of  being  strung  up  himself, 
or  have  his  head  chopped  off  and  stuck  up  on  a  spike  some 
where  for  ornament.  But  fight!  Good  Lord!  They  were  at 
it  day  and  night.  Did  it  for  fun,  just  like  folks  go  to  the  show. 


358  T.  TEMBAROM 

They  did  n't  know  what  fear  was.  Never  heard  of  it.  They  M 
go  about  shouting  and  bragging  and  swaggering,  with  their 
heads  hanging  half  off.  And  the  one  in  this  book  was  the 
bulliest  fighter  of  the  lot.  I  guess  I  don't  know  how  to  pro 
nounce  his  name.  It  began  with  H." 

"Was  it  Hereward  the  Wake,  by  chance?"  exclaimed  his 
auditor.  "  Hereward  the  Last  of  the  English  ?  " 

"That's  the  man/'  cried  Tembarom. 

"An  engaging  ruffian  and  thief  and  murderer,  and  a  touch 
ing  one  also,"  commented  the  duke.  "You  liked  him?"  He 
really  wanted  to  know. 

"I  like  the  way  he  went  after  what  he  wanted  to  get,  and 
the  way  he  fought  for  his  bit  of  England.  By  gee !  When  he 
went  rushing  into  a  fight,  shouting  and  boasting  and  swinging 
his  sword,  I  got  hot  in  the  collar.  It  was  his  England.  What 
was  old  Bill  doing  there  anyhow,  darn  him !  Those  chaps 
made  him  swim  in  their  blood  before  they  let  him  put  the  thing 
over.  Good  business !  I  'm  glad  they  gave  him  all  that  was 
coming  to  him  —  hot  and  strong." 

His  sharp  face  had  reddened  and  his  voice  rose  high  and 
nasal.  There  was  a  look  of  roused  blood  in  him. 

"  Are  you  a  fighter  from  Fightersville  ?  "  the  duke  asked,  far 
from  unstirred  himself.  These  things  had  become  myths  to 
most  people,  but  here  was  Broadway  in  the  midst  of  them  un 
consciously  suggesting  that  it  might  not  have  done  ill  in  the 
matter  of  swinging  "  Brain-Biter "  itself.  The  modern  entity 
slipped  back  again  through  the  lengthened  links  of  bygone  cen 
turies —  back  until  it  became  T.  Tembarom  once  more  — 
casual  though  shrewd;  ready  and  'jocular.  His  eyes  resumed 
their  dry  New  York  humor  of  expression  as  they  fixed  them 
selves  on  his  wholly  modern  questioner. 

"  I  '11  fight,"  he  said,  "  for  what  I  've  got  to  fight  for,  but 
not  for  a  darned  thing  else.  Not  a  darned  thing." 

"  But  you  would  fight,"  smiled  the  duke,  grimly.  "  Did  you 
happen  to  remember  that  blood  like  that  has  come  down  to  you? 
It  was  some  drop  of  it  which  made  you  'hot  in  the  collar' 
over  that  engaging  savage  roaring  and  slashing  about  him  for 
his  '  bit  of  England.' " 


T.   TEMBAEOM  359 

Tembarom  seemed  to  think  it  out  interestedly. 

"  No,  I  did  not/'  he  answered.  "  But  I  guess  that 's  so.  I 
guess  it 's  so.  Great  Jakes !  Think  of  me  perhaps  being  sort 
of  kin  to  fellows  just  like  that.  Some  way,  you  couldn't  help 
liking  him.  He  was  always  making  big  breaks  and  bellowing 
out  '  The  Wake !  The  Wake ! '  in  season  and  out  of  season ; 
but  the  way  he  got  there  —  just  got  there!" 

He  was  oddly  in  sympathy  with  "  the  early  savages  here,"  and 
as  understandingly  put  himself  into  their  places  as  he  had  put 
himself  into  Galton's.  His  New  York  comprehension  of  their 
berserker  furies  was  apparently  without  limit.  Strong  par- 
tizan  as  he  was  of  the  last  of  the  English,  however,  he  admitted 
that  William  of  Normandy  had  "  got  in  some  good  work,  though 
it  was  n't  square." 

"  He  was  a  big  man,"  he  ended.  "  If  he  had  n't  been  the 
kind  he  was  I  don't  know  how  I  should  have  stood  it  when  the 
Hereward  fellow  knelt  down  before  him,  and  put  his  hands 
between  his  and  swore  to  be  his  man.  That's  the  way  the 
book  said  it.  I  tell  you  that  must  have  been  tough  —  tough  as 
hell ! " 

From  "  Good-bye,  Sweetheart "  to  "  Hereward  the  Last  of 
the  English"  was  a  far  cry,  but  he  had  gathered  a  curious 
collection  of  ideas  by  the  way,  and  with  characteristic  every 
day  reasoning  had  linked  them  to  his  own  experiences. 

"  The  women  in  the  Hereward  book  made  me  think  of  Lady 
Joan,"  he  remarked,  suddenly. 

"  Torf reda  ?  "  the  duke  asked. 

He  nodded  quite  seriously. 

"  She  had  ways  that  reminded  me  of  her,  and  I  kept  think 
ing  they  must  both  have  had  the  same  look  in  their  eyes  —  sort 
of  fierce  and  hungry.  Torfreda  had  black  hair  and  was  a 
winner  as  to  looks ;  but  people  were  afraid  of  her  and  called  her 
a  witch.  Hereward  went  mad  over  her  and  she  went  mad  over 
him.  That  part  of  it  was  'way  out  of  sight,  it  was  so  fine. 
She  helped  him  with  his  fights  and  told  him  what  to  do,  and 
tried  to  keep  him  from  drinking  and  bragging.  Whatever  he 
did,  she  never  stopped  being  crazy  about  him.  She  mended  his 


360  T.  TEMBAROM 

men's  clothes,  and  took  care  of  their  wounds,  and  lived  in  the 
forest  with  him  when  he  was  driven  out." 

"  That  sounds  rather  like  Miss  Hutchinson,"  his  host  sug 
gested,  "  though  the  parallel  between  a  Harlem  flat  and  an  Eng 
lish  forest  in  the  eleventh  century  is  not  exact/' 

"I  thought  that,  too,"  Tembarom  admitted.  "Ann  would 
have  done  the  same  things,  but  she'd  have  done  them  in  her 
way.  If  that  fellow  had  taken  his  wife's  advice,  he  wouldn't 
have  ended  with  his  head  sticking  on  a  spear." 

"Another  lady,  if  I  remember  rightly,"  said  the  duke. 

"  He  left  her,  the  fool ! "  Tembarom  answered.  "  And 
there's  where  I  couldn't  get  away  from  seeing  Lady  Joan; 
Jem  Temple  Barholm  did  n't  go  off  with  another  woman,  but 
what  Torfreda  went  through,  this  one  has  gone  through,  and 
she 's  going  through  it  yet.  She  can't  dress  herself  in  sackcloth, 
and  cut  off  her  hair,  and  hide  herself  away  with  a  bunch  of 
nuns,  as  the  other  one  did.  She  has  to  stay  and  stick  it  out, 
however  bad  it  is.  That 's  a  darned  sight  worse.  The  day  after 
I  'd  finished  the  book,  I  could  n't  keep  my  eyes  off  her.  I  tried 
to  stop  it,  but  it  was  no  use.  I  kept  hearing  that  Torfreda  one 
screaming  out,  '  Lost !  Lost !  Lost ! '  It  was  all  in  her  face." 

"  But,  my  good  fellow,"  protested  the  duke,  despite  feeling  a 
touch  of  the  thrill  again,  "  unfortunately,  she  would  not  suspect 
you  of  looking  at  her  because  you  were  recalling  Torfreda  and 
Hereward  the  Wake.  Men  stare  at  her  for  another  reason." 

"  That 's  what  I  know  about  half  as  well  again  as  I  know 
anything  else/'  answered  Tembarom.  He  added,  with  a  delib 
eration  holding  its  own  meaning,  "  That 's  what  I  'm  coming 
to." 

The  duke  waited.    What  was  it  he  was  coming  to  ? 

"Beading  that  novel  put  me  wise  to  things  in  a  new  way. 
She's  been  wiping  her  feet  on  me  hard  for  a  good  while,  and 
I  sort  of  made  up  my  mind  I  'd  got  to  let  her  until  I  was  sure 
where  I  was.  I  won't  say  I  did  n't  mind  it,  but  I  could  stand 
it.  But  that  night  she  caught  me  looking  at  her,  the  way  she 
looked  back  at  me  made  me  see  all  of  a  sudden  that  it  would  be 
easier  for  her  if  I  told  her  straight  that  she  was  mistaken." 

"  That  she  is  mistaken  in  thinking  —  ?  " 


T.  TEMBAROM  361 

i 

"  What  she  does  think.  She  would  n't  have  thought  it  if  the 
old  lady  had  n't  been  driving  her  mad  by  hammering  it  in. 
She  'd  have  hated  me  all  right,  and  I  don't  blame  her  when  I 
think  of  how  poor  Jem  was  treated ;  but  she  would  n't  have 
thought  that  every  time  I  tried  to  be  decent  and  friendly  to  her 
I  was  butting  in  and  making  a  sick  fool  of  myself.  She 's  got 
to  stay  where  her  mother  keeps  her,  and  she  's  got  to  listen  to 
her.  Oh,  hell !  She 's  got  to  be  told ! " 

The  duke  set  the  tips  of  his  fingers  together. 

"  How  would  you  do  it  ?  "  he  inquired. 

"  Just  straight,"  replied  T.  Tembarom.  "  There  's  no  other 
way." 

From  the  old  worldling  broke  forth  an  involuntary  low  laugh, 
which  was  a  sort  of  cackle.  So  this  was  what  he  was  coming 
to. 

"  I  cannot  think  of  any  devious  method,"  he  said,  "  which 
would  make  it  less  than  a  delicate  thing  to  do.  A  beau 
tiful  young  woman,  whose  host  you  are,  has  flouted  you  fu 
riously  for  weeks,  under  the  impression  that  you  are  offensively 
in  love  with  her.  You  propose  to  tell  her  that  her  judgment 
has  betrayed  her,  and  that,  as  you  say,  ' There's  nothing 
doing.'" 

"  Not  a  darned  thing,  and  never  has  been,"  said  T.  Tembarom. 
He  looked  quite  grave  and  not  at  all  embarrassed.  He  plainly 
did  not  see  it  as  a  situation  to  be  regarded  with  humor. 

"  If  she  will  listen  — "  the  duke  began. 

"  Oh,  she  '11  listen,"  put  in  Tembarom.     "  I  '11  make  her." 

His  was  a  self-contradicting  countenance,  the  duke  reflected, 
as  he  took  him  in  with  a  somewhat  long  look.  One  did  not 
usually  see  a  face  built  up  of  boyishness  and  maturity,  simple- 
ness  which  was  baffling,  and  a  good  nature  which  could  be  hard. 
At  the  moment,  it  was  both  of  these  last  at  one  and  the  same 
time. 

"  I  know  something  of  Lady  Joan  and  I  know  something  of 
you,"  he  said,  "but  I  don't  exactly  foresee  what  will  happen. 
I  will  not  say  that  I  should  not  like  to  be  present." 

"  There  '11  be  nobody  present  but  just  me  and  her,"  Tem 
barom  answered. 


CHAPTER  XXX 


HE  visits  of  Lady  Mallowe  and  Captain 
Palliser  had  had  their  features.  Neither 
of  the  pair  had  come  to  one  of  the  most 
imposing  "  places  "  in  Lancashire  to  live  a 
life  of  hermit-like  seclusion  and  dullness. 
They  had  arrived  with  the  intention  of 
availing  themselves  of  all  such  opportuni 
ties  for  entertainment  as  could  be  guided 
in  their  direction  by  the  deftness  of  ex 
perience.  As  a  result,  there  had  been 
hospitalities  at  Temple  Barholm  such  as  it  had  not  beheld  during 
the  last  generation  at  least.  T.  Tembarom  had  looked  on,  an  in 
terested  spectator,  as  these  festivities  had  been  adroitly  arranged 
and  managed  for  him.  He  had  not,  however,  in  the  least  resented 
acting  as  a  sort  of  figurehead  in  the  position  of  sponsor  and 
host. 

"  They  think  I  don't  know  I  'm  not  doing  it  all  myself/'  was 
his  easy  mental  summing-up.  "  They  've  got  the  idea  that 
I  'm  pleased  because  I  believe  I  'm  It.  But  that 's  all  to  the 
merry.  It 's  what  I  've  set  my  mind  on  having  going  on  here, 
and  I  could  n't  have  started  it  as  well  myself.  I  should  n't 
have  known  how.  They're  teaching  me.  All  I  hope  is  that 
Ann's  grandmother  is  keeping  tab." 

"Do  you  and  Rose  know  old  Mrs.  Hutchinson?"  he  had  in 
quired  of  Pearson  the  night  before  the  talk  with  the  duke. 

"  Well,  not  to  say  exactly  Tcnow  her,  sir,  but  everybody  knows 
of  her.  She  is  a  most  remarkable  old  person,  sir."  Then,  after 
watching  his  face  for  a  moment  or  so,  he  added  tentatively, 
"  Would  you  perhaps  wish  us  to  make  her  acquaintance  for  — 
for  any  reason?" 

Tembarom  thought  the  matter  over  speculatively.     He  had 

362 


T.  TEMBAEOM  363 

learned  that  his  first  liking  for  Pearson  had  been  founded  upon 
a  rock.  He  was  always  to  be  trusted  to  understand,  and  also  to 
apply  a  quite  unusual  intelligence  to  such  matters  as  he  became 
aware  of  without  having  been  told  about  them. 

"  What  I  'd  like  would  be  for  her  to  hear  that  there 's 
plenty  doing  at  Temple  Barholm;  that  people  are  coming  and 
going  all  the  time ;  and  that  there  's  ladies  to  burn  —  and  most 
of  them  lookers,  at  that,"  was  his  answer. 

How  Pearson  had  discovered  the  exotic  subtleties  of  his  mas 
ter's  situation  and  mental  attitude  toward  it,  only  those  of  his 
class  and  gifted  with  his  occult  powers  could  explain  in  detail. 
The  fact  exists  that  Pearson  did  know  an  immense  number 
of  things  his  employer  had  not  mentioned  to  him,  and  held 
them  locked  in  his  bosom  in  honored  security,  like  a  little 
gentleman.  He  made  his  reply  with  a  polite  conviction  which 
carried  weight. 

"  It  would  not  be  necessary  for  either  Rose  or  me  to  make 
old  Mrs.  Hutchinson's  acquaintance  with  a  view  to  informing 
her  of  anything  which  occurs  on  the  estate  or  in  the  village, 
sir,"  he  remarked.  "Mrs.  Hutchinson  knows  more  of  things 
than  any  one  ever  tells  her.  She  sits  in  her  cottage  there,  and 
she  just  knows  things  and  sees  through  people  in  a  way  that  'd 
be  almost  unearthly,  if  she  wasn't  a  good  old  person,  and  so 
respectable  that  there's  those  that  touches  their  hats  to  her  as 
if  she  belonged  to  the  gentry.  She 's  got  a  blue  eye,  sir  — " 

"  Has  she  ?  "  exclaimed  Tembarom. 

"Yes,  sir.  As  blue  as  a  baby's,  sir,  and  as  clear,  though 
she 's  past  eighty.  And  they  tell  me  there 's  a  quiet,  steady 
look  in  it  that  ill-doers  downright  quail  before.  It's  as  if  she 
was  a  kind  of  judge  that  sentenced  them  without  speaking. 
They  can't  stand  it.  Oh,  sir!  you  can  depend  upon  old  Mrs. 
Hutchinson  as  to  who 's  been  here,  and  even  what  they  've 
thought  about  it.  The  village  just  flocks  to  her  to  tell  her  the 
news  and  get  advice  about  things.  She'd  know." 

It  was  as  a  result  of  this  that  on  his  return  from  Stone 
Hover  he  dismissed  the  carriage  at  the  gates  and  walked  through 
them  to  make  a  visit  in  the  village.  Old  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  sit 
ting  knitting  in  her  chair  behind  the  abnormally  flourishing 


364  T.  TEMBAROM 

fuchsias,  geraniums,  and  campanula  carpaticas  in  her  cottage- 
window,  looked  between  the  banked-up  flower-pots  to  see  that 
Mr.  Temple  Barholm  had  opened  her  wicket-gate  and  was  walk 
ing  up  the  clean  bricked  path  to  her  front  door.  When  he 
knocked  she  called  out  in  the  broad  Lancashire  she  had  always 
spoken,  "  Coom  in !  "  When  he  entered  he  took  off  his  hat  and 
looked  at  her,  friendly  but  hesitant,  and  with  the  expression  of 
a  young  man  who  has  not  quite  made  up  his  mind  as  to  what 
he  is  about  to  encounter. 

"I'm  Temple  Temple  Barholm,  Mrs.  Hutchinson,"  he  an 
nounced. 

"I  know  that,"  she  answered.  "Not  that  tha  looks  loike 
th'  Temple  Barholms,  but  I  've  been  watchin'  thee  walk  an' 
drive  past  here  ever  since  tha  coom  to  th'  place." 

She  watched  him  steadily  with  an  astonishingly  limpid  pair 
of  old  eyes.  They  were  old  and  young  at  the  same  time;  old 
because  they  held  deeps  of  wisdom,  young  because  they  were  so 
alive  and  full  of  question. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  I  ought  to  have  come  to  see  you  or 
not,"  he  said. 

"  Well,  tha  'st  coom,"  she  replied,  going  on  with  her  knitting. 
"  Sit  thee  doun  and  have  a  bit  of  a  chat." 

"  Say ! "  he  broke  out.  "  Ain't  you  going  to  shake  hands 
with  me  ?  "  He  held  his  hand  out  impetuously.  He  knew  he 
was  all  right  if  she'd  shake  hands. 

"  Theer  's  nowt  agen  that  surely,"  she  answered,  with  a 
shrewd  bit  of  a  smile.  She  gave  him  her  hand.  "  If  I  was  na 
stiff  in  my  legs,  it 's  my  place  to  get  up  an'  mak'  thee  a  curtsey, 
but  th'  rheumatics  has  no  respect  even  for  th'  lord  o'  th' 
manor." 

"  If  you  got  up  and  made  me  a  curtsey,"  Tembarom  said,  "  I 
should  throw  a  fit.  Say,  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  I  bet  you  know  that 
as  well  as  I  do." 

The  shrewd  bit  of  a  smile  lighted  her  eyes  as  well  as  twinkled 
about  her  mouth. 

"  Sit  thee  doun,"  she  said  again. 

So  he  sat  down  and  looked  at  her  as  straight  as  she  looked  at 
him. 


T.   TEMBAEOM  365 

"  Tha  'd  give  a  good  bit,"  she  said  presently,  over  her  flashing 
needles,  "to  know  how  much  Little  Ann's  tow'd  me  about 
thee." 

"  I  'd  give  a  lot  to  know  how  much  it  'd  be  square  to  ask 
you  to  tell  me  about  her"  he  gave  back  to  her,  hesitating  yet 
eager. 

"  What  does  tha  mean  by  square  ?  "  she  demanded. 

"  I  mean  *  fair/  Can  I  talk  to  you  about  her  at  all  ?  I 
promised  I  'd  stick  it  out  here  and  do  as  she  said.  She  told 
me  she  was  n't  going  to  write  to  me  or  let  her  father  write. 
I  've  promised,  and  I  'm  not  going  to  fall  down  when  I  've  said 
a  thing." 

"  So  tha  coom  to  see  her  grandmother  ?  " 

He  reddened,  but  held  his  head  up. 

"  I  'm  not  going  to  ask  her  grandmother  a  thing  she  does  n't 
want  me  to  be  told.  But  I  've  been  up  against  it  pretty  hard 
lately.  I  read  some  things  in  the  New  York  papers  about  her 
father  and  his  invention,  and  about  her  traveling  round  with 
him  and  helping  him  with  his  business." 

"  In  Germany  they  wur,"  she  put  in,  forgetting  herself. 
"  They  're  havin'  big  doin's  over  th'  invention.  What  Joe  Vd 
do  wi'out  th'  lass  I  canna  tell.  She 's  doin'  every  bit  o'  th'  man- 
agin'  an'  contrivin'  wi'  them  f urriners  —  but  he  '11  never  know 
it.  She's  got  a  chap  to  travel  wi'  him  as  can  talk  aw  th' 
languages  under  th'  sun." 

Her  face  flushed  and  she  stopped  herself  sharply. 

"  I  'm  talkin'  about  her  to  thee !  "  she  said.  "  I  would  na 
ha'  believed  o'  mysen'." 

He  got  up  from  his  chair. 

"  I  guess  I  ought  n't  to  have  come,"  he  said,  restlessly.  "  But 
you  have  n't  told  me  more  than  I  got  here  and  there  in  the 
papers.  That  was  what  started  me.  It  was  like  watching  her. 
I  could  hear  her  talking  and  see  the  way  she  was  doing  things 
till  it  drove  me  half  crazy.  All  of  a  sudden,  I  just  got  wild 
and  made  up  my  mind  I  'd  come  here.  I  've  wanted  to  do  it 
many  a  time,  but  I  've  kept  away." 

"Tha  showed  sense  i'  doin'  that,"  remarked  Mrs.  Hutchin- 
son.  "  She  'd  not  ha'  thowt  well  o'  thee  if  tha  'd  coom  runnin' 


366  T.  TEMBAKOM 

to  her  grandmother  every  day  or  so.  What  she  likes  about  thee 
is  as  she  thinks  tha  's  got  a  strong  backbone  o'  thy  own." 

She  looked  up  at  him  over  her  knitting,  looked  straight  into 
his  eyes,  and  there  was  that  in  her  own  which  made  him  redden 
and  feel  his  pulse  quicken.  It  was  actually  something  which 
even  remotely  suggested  that  she  was  not  —  in  the  deeps  of  her 
strong  old  mind  —  as  wholly  unswerving  as  her  words  might 
imply.  It  was  something  more  subtle  than  words.  She  was 
not  keeping  him  wholly  in  the  dark  when  she  said  "  What  she 
likes  about  thee."  If  Ann  said  things  like  that  to  her,  he  was 
pretty  well  off. 

"  Happen  a  look  at  a  lass  's  grandmother  —  when  tha  conna 
get  at  th'  lass  hersen  —  is  a  bit  o'  comfort,"  she  added.  "  But 
don't  tha  go  walkin'  by  here  to  look  in  at  th'  window  too 
often.  She  would  na  think  well  o'  that  either." 

"  Say !  There  's  one  thing  I  'm  going  to  get  off  my  chest 
before  I  go,"  he  announced,  "just  one  thing.  She  can  go 
where  she  likes  and  do  what  she 'likes,  but  I'm  going  to  marry 
her  when  she's  done  it  —  unless  something  knocks  me  on  the 
head  and  finishes  me.  I  'm  going  to  marry  her." 

"  Tha  art,  art  tha  ?  "  laconically ;  but  her  eyes  were  still  on 
his,  and  the  something  in  their  depths  by  no  means  diminished. 

"  I  'm  keeping  up  my  end  here,  and  it 's  no  slouch  of  a  job, 
but  I'm  not  forgetting  what  she  promised  for  one  minute! 
And  I  'm  not  forgetting  what  her  promise  means,"  he  said 
obstinately. 

"Tha'd  like  me  to  tell  her  that?"  she  said. 

"If  she  doesn't  know  it,  you  telling  her  wouldn't  cut  any 
ice,"  was  his  reply.  "  I  'm  saying  it  because  I  want  you  to 
know  it,  and  because  it  does  me  good  to  say  it  out  loud.  I  'm 
going  to  marry  her." 

"That's  for  her  and  thee  to  settle,"  she  commented,  im 
personally. 

"It  is  settled,"  he  answered.  "There's  no  way  out  of  it. 
Will  you  shake  hands  with  me  again  before  I  go  ?  " 

"  Aye,"  she  consented,  "  I  will." 

When  she  took  his  hand  she  held  it  a  minute.  Her  own  was 
warm,  and  there  was  no  limpness  about  it.  The  secret  which 


T.   TEMBAEOM  367 

had  seemed  to  conceal  itself  behind  her  eyes  had  some  difficulty 
in  keeping  itself  wholly  in  the  background. 

"  She  knows  aw  tha'  does,"  she  said  coolly,  as  if  she  were  not 
suddenly  revealing  immensities.  "  She  knows  who  cooms  an' 
who  goes,  an'  what  they  think  o'  thee,  an'  how  tha  gets  on  wi' 
'em.  ISTow  get  thee  gone,  lad,  an'  dunnot  tha  coom  .back  till 
her  or  me  sends  for  thee/' 

Within  an  hour  of  this  time  the  afternoon  post  brought  to 
Lady  Mallowe  a  letter  which  she  read  with  an  expression  in 
which  her  daughter  recognized  relief.  It  was  in  fact  a  letter 
for  which  she  had  waited  with  anxiety,  and  the  invitation  it 
contained  was  a  tribute  to  her  social  skill  at  its  highest  water 
mark.  In  her  less  heroic  moments,  she  had  felt  doubts  of  re 
ceiving  it,  which  had  caused  shudders  to  run  the  entire  length 
of  her  spine. 

"  I  'm  going  to  Broome  Haughton,"  she  announced  to  Joan. 

"  When  ?  "  Joan  inquired. 

"  At  the  end  of  the  week.     I  am  invited  for  a  fortnight." 

"  Am  I  going  ?  "  Joan  asked. 

"  No.  You  will  go  to  London  to  meet  some  friends  who  are 
coming  over  from  Paris." 

Joan  knew  that  comment  was  unnecessary.  Both  she  and 
her  mother  were  on  intimate  terms  with  these  hypothetical 
friends  who  so  frequently  turned  up  from  Paris  or  elsewhere 
when  it  was  necessary  that  she  should  suddenly  go  back  to 
London  and  live  in  squalid  seclusion  in  the  unopened  house, 
with  a  charwoman  to  provide  her  with  underdone  or  burnt  chops, 
and  eggs  at  eighteen  a  shilling,  while  the  shutters  of  the  front 
rooms  were  closed,  and  dusty  desolation  reigned.  She  knew 
every  detail  of  the  melancholy  squalor  of  it,  the  dragging  hours, 
the  nights  of  lying  awake  listening  to  the  occasional  passing  of 
belated  cabs,  or  the  squeaks  and  nibbling  of  mice  in  the  old 
walls. 

"If  you  had  conducted  yourself  sensibly  you  need  not  have 
gone,"  continued  her  mother.  "  I  could  have  made  an  excuse 
and  left  you  here.  You  would  at  least  have  been  sure  of  good 
food  and  decent  comforts." 


368  T.  TEMBAEOM 

"  After  your  visit,  are  we  to  return  here  ?  "  was  Lady  Joan's 
sole  reply. 

"Don't  look  at  me  like  that,"  said  Lady  Mallowe.  "I 
thought  the  country  would  freshen  your  color  at  least;  but  you 
are  going  off  more  every  day.  You  look  like  the  Witch  of 
Endor  sometimes." 

Joan  smiled  faintly.  This  was  the  brandishing  of  an  old 
weapon,  and  she  understood  all  its  significance.  It  meant  that 
the  time  for  opportunities  was  slipping  past  her  like  the  waters 
of  a  rapid  river. 

"  I  do  not  know  what  will  happen  when  I  leave  Broome 
Haughton,"  her  mother  added,  a  note  of  rasped  uncertainty  in 
her  voice.  "  We  may  be  obliged  to  come  here  for  a  short  time, 
or  we  may  go  abroad." 

"  If  I  refuse  to  come,  would  you  let  me  starve  to  death  in 
Piers  Street  ?  "  Joan  inquired. 

Lady  Mallowe  looked  her  over,  feeling  a  sort  of  frenzy  at  the 
sight  of  her.  In  truth,  the  future  was  a  hideous  thing  to  con 
template  if  no  rescue  at  all  was  in  sight.  It  would  be  worse 
for  her  than  for  Joan,  because  Joan  did  not  care  what  hap 
pened  or  did  not  happen,  and  she  cared  desperately.  She  had 
indeed  arrived  at  a  maddening  moment. 

"  Yes,"  she  snapped,  fiercely. 

And  when  Joan  faintly  smiled  again  she  understood  why 
women  of  the  lower  orders  beat  one  another  until  policemen  in 
terfere.  She  knew  perfectly  well  that  the  girl  had  somehow 
found  out  that  Sir  Moses  Monaldini  was  to  be  at  Broome 
Haughton,  and  that  when  he  left  there  he  was  going  abroad. 
She  knew  also  that  she  had  not  been  able  to  conceal  that  his  in 
difference  had  of  late  given  her  some  ghastly  hours,  and  that  her 
play  for  this  lagging  invitation  had  been  a  frantically  bold  one. 
That  the  most  ingenious  efforts  and  devices  had  ended  in  suc 
cess  only  after  such  delay  made  it  all  the  more  necessary  that  no 
straw  must  remain  unseized  on. 

"  I  can  wear  some  of  your  things,  with  a  little  alteration," 
she  said.  "  Eose  will  do  it  for  me.  Hats  and  gloves  and 
ornaments  do  not  require  altering.  I  shall  need  things  you 
will  not  need  in  London.  Where  are  your  keys  ?  " 


T.  TEMBAEOM  369 

Lady  Joan  rose  and  got  them  for  her.  She  even  flushed 
slightly.  They  were  often  obliged  to  borrow  each  other's  pos 
sessions,  but  for  a  moment  she  felt  herself  moved  by  a  sort  of 
hard  pity. 

"We  are  like  rats  in  a  trap,"  she  remarked.  "I  hope  you 
will  get  out." 

"  If  I  do,  you  will  be  left  inside.  Get  out  yourself !  Get 
out  yourself ! "  said  Lady  Mallowe  in  a  fierce  whisper. 

Her  regrets  at  the  necessity  of  their  leaving  Temple  Bar- 
holm  were  expressed  with  fluent  touchingness  at  the  dinner- 
table.  The  visit  had  been  so  delightful.  Mr.  Temple  Barholm 
and  Miss  Alicia  had  been  so  kind.  The  loveliness  of  the  whole 
dear  place  had  so  embraced  them  that  they  felt  as  if  they  were 
leaving  a  home  instead  of  ending  a  delightful  visit.  It  was 
extraordinary  what  an  effect  the  house  had  on  one.  It  was  as 
if  one  had  lived  in  it  always  —  and  always  would.  So  few 
places  gave  one  the  same  feeling.  They  should  both  look  for 
ward —  greedy  as  it  seemed  —  to  being  allowed  some  time  to 
come  again.  She  had  decided  from  the  first  that  it  was  not 
necessary  to  go  to  any  extreme  of  caution  or  subtlety  with  her 
host  and  Miss  Alicia.  Her  method  of  paving  the  way  for  fu 
ture  visits  was  perhaps  more  than  a  shade  too  elaborate.  She 
felt,  however,  that  it  sufficed.  For  the  most  part,  Lady  Joan 
sat  with  lids  dropped  over  her  burning  eyes.  She  tried  to 
force  herself  not  to  listen.  This  was  the  kind  of  thing  which 
made  her  sick  with  humiliation.  Howsoever  rudimentary  these 
people  were,  they  could  not  fail  to  comprehend  that  a  foothold 
in  the  house  was  being  bid  for.  They  should  at  least  see  that 
she  did  not  join  in  the  bidding.  Her  own  visit  had  been  filled 
with  feelings  at  war  with  one  another.  There  had  been  hours 
too  many  in  which  she  would  have  been  glad  —  even  with  the 
dingy  horrors  of  the  closed  town  house  before  her  —  to  have 
flown  from  the  hundred  things  which  called  out  to  her  on  every 
side.  In  the  long-past  three  months  of  happiness,  Jem  had 
described  them  all  to  her  —  the  rooms,  gardens,  pleached  walks, 
pictures,  the  very  furniture  itself.  She  could  enter  no  room, 
walk  in  no  spot  she  did  not  seem  to  know,  and  passionately  love 
in  spite  of  herself.  She  loved  them  so  much  that  there  were 


370  T.  TEMBAROM 

times  when  she  yearned  to  stay  in  the  place  at  any  cost,  and 
others  when  she  could  not  endure  the  misery  it  woke  in  her  — 
the  pure  misery.  Now  it  was  over  for  the  time  being,  and 
she  was  facing  something  new.  There  were  endless  varieties  of 
wretchedness.  She  had  been  watching  her  mother  for  some 
months,  and  had  understood  her  varying  moods  of  temporary 
elation  or  prolonged  anxiety.  Each  one  had  meant  some  phase 
of  the  episode  of  Sir  Moses  Monaldini.  The  people  who  lived 
at  Broome  Haughton  were  enormously  rich  Hebrews,  who  were 
related  to  him.  They  had  taken  the  beautiful  old  country-seat 
and  were  filling  it  with  huge  parties  of  their  friends.  The 
party  which  Lady  Mallowe  was  to  join  would  no  doubt  offer 
opportunities  of  the  most  desirable  kind.  Among  this  special 
class  of  people  she  was  a  great  success.  Her  amazingly  achieved 
toilettes,  her  ripe  good  looks,  her  air  of  belonging  to  the  great 
world,  impressed  themselves  immensely. 

T.  Tembarom  thought  he  never  had  seen  Lady  Joan  look  as 
handsome  as  she  looked  to-night.  The  color  on  her  cheek 
burned,  her  eyes  had  a  driven  loneliness  in  them.  She  had  a 
wonderfully  beautiful  mouth,  and  its  curve  drooped  in  a  new 
way.  He  wished  Ann  could  get  her  in  a  corner  and  sit  down 
and  talk  sense  to  her.  He  remembered  what  he  had  said  to 
the  duke.  Perhaps  this  was  the  time.  If  she  was  going  away, 
and  her  mother  meant  to  drag  her  back  again  when  she  was 
ready,  it  would  make  it  easier  for  her  to  leave  the  place  know 
ing  she  need  not  hate  to  come  back.  But  the  duke  was  n't  mak 
ing  any  miss  hit  when  he  said  it  wouldn't  be  easy.  She  was 
not  like  Ann,  who  would  feel  some  pity  for  the  biggest  fool  on 
earth  if  she  had  to  throw  him  down  hard.  Lady  Joan  would 
feel  neither  compunctions  nor  relentings.  He  knew  the  way 
she  could  look  at  a  fellow.  If  he  couldn't  make  her  under 
stand  what  he  was  aiming  at,  they  would  both  be  worse  off  than 
they  would  be  if  he  left  things  as  they  were.  But  —  the  hard 
line  showed  itself  about  his  mouth  —  he  wasn't  going  to  leave 
things  as  they  were. 

As  they  passed  through  the  hall  after  dinner,  Lady  Mallowe 
glanced  at  a  side-table  on  which  lay  some  letters  arrived  by 


T.  TEMBAEOM  371 

the  late  post.  An  imposing  envelope  was  on  the  top  of  the  rest. 
Joan  saw  her  face  light  as  she  took  it  up. 

"  I  think  this  is  from  Broome  Haughton,"  she  said.  "  If 
you  will  excuse  me,  I  will  go  into  the  library  and  read  it.  It 
may  require  answering  at  once." 

She  turned  hot  and  cold,  poor  woman,  and  went  away,  so 
that  she  might  be  free  from  the  disaster  of  an  audience  if  any 
thing  had  gone  wrong.  It  would  be  better  to  be  alone  even  if 
things  had  gone  right.  The  letter  was  from  Sir  Moses 
Monaldini.  Grotesque  and  ignoble  as  it  naturally  strikes  the 
uninitiated  as  seeming,  the  situation  had  its  touch  of  hideous 
pathos.  She  had  fought  for  her  own  hand  for  years;  she  could 
not  dig,  and  to  beg  she  was  not  ashamed;  but  a  time  had 
come  when  even  the  most  adroit  begging  began  to  bore  people. 
They  saw  through  it,  and  then  there  resulted  strained  relations, 
slight  stiffness  of  manner,  even  in  the  most  useful  and  amiable 
persons,  lack  of  desire  to  be  hospitable,  or  even  condescendingly 
generous.  Cold  shoulders  were  turned,  there  were  ominous 
threatenings  of  icy  backs  presenting  themselves.  The  very 
tradesmen  had  found  this  out,  and  could  not  be  persuaded  that 
the  advertisement  furnished  by  the  fact  that  two  beautiful 
women  of  fashion  ate,  drank,  and  wore  the  articles  which 
formed  the  items  in  their  unpaid  bills,  was  sufficient  return  for 
the  outlay  of  capital  required.  Even  Mrs.  Mellish,  when 
graciously  approached  by  the  "relative  of  Miss  Temple  Bar- 
holm,  whose  perfect  wardrobe  you  supplied,"  had  listened  to  all 
seductions  with  a  civil  eye  fixed  unmovedly  and  had  referred  to 
the  "rules  of  the  establishment."  Nearer  and  nearer  the  edge 
of  the  abyss  the  years  had  pushed  them,  and  now  if  something 
did  not  happen  —  something  —  something  —  even  the  increas 
ingly  shabby  small  house  in  town  would  become  a  thing  of  the 
past.  And  what  then  ?  Could  any  one  wonder  she  said  to  her 
self  that  she  could  have  beaten  Joan  furiously.  It  would  not 
matter  to  any  one  else  if  they  dropped  out  of  the  world  into 
squalid  oblivion  —  oh,  she  knew  that  —  she  knew  that  with  bit 
ter  certainty !  —  but  oh,  how  it  would  matter  to  them !  —  at 
least  to  herself.  It  was  all  very  well  for  Mudie's  to  pour  forth 


372  T.  TEMBAROM 

streams  of  sentimental  novels  preaching  the  horrors  of  girls 
marrying  for  money,  but  what  were  you  to  do  —  what  in 
heaven's  name  were  you  to  do?  So,  feeling  terrified  enough 
actually  to  offer  up  a  prayer,  she  took  the  imposingly  addressed 
letter  into  the  library. 

The  men  had  come  into  the  drawing-room  when  she  returned. 
As  she  entered,  Joan  did  not  glance  up  from  the  book  she  was 
reading,  but  at  the  first  sound  of  her  voice  she  knew  what  had 
occurred. 

"I  was  obliged  to  dash  off  a  note  to  Broome  Haughton  so 
that  it  would  be  ready  for  the  early  post/'  Lady  Mallowe  said. 
She  was  at  her  best.  Palliser  saw  that  some  years  had  slipped 
from  her  shoulders.  The  moment  which  relieves  or  even  prom 
ises  to  relieve  fears  does  astonishing  things.  Tembarom  won 
dered  whether  she  had  had  good  news,  and  Miss  Alicia  thought 
that  her  evening  dress  was  more  becoming  than  any  she  had 
ever  seen  her  wear  before.  Her  brilliant  air  of  social  ease  re 
turned  to  her,  and  she  began  to  talk  fluently  of  what  was  being 
done  in  London,  and  to  touch  lightly  upon  the  possibility  of 
taking  part  in  great  functions.  For  some  time  she  had  rather 
evaded  talk  of  the  future.  Palliser  had  known  that  the  fu 
ture  had  seemed  to  be  closing  in  upon  her,  and  leaving  her  star 
ing  at  a  high  blank  wall.  Persons  whose  fortunate  names  had 
ceased  to  fall  easily  from  her  lips  appeared  again  upon  the 
horizon.  Miss  Alicia  was  impressed  anew  with  the  feeling 
that  she  had  known  every  brilliant  or  important  personage  in 
the  big  world  of  social  London ;  that  she  had  taken  part  in  every 
dazzling  event.  Tembarom  somehow  realized  that  she  had 
been  afraid  of  something  or  other,  and  was  for  some  reason  not 
afraid  any  more.  Such  a  change,  whatsoever  the  reason  for  it, 
ought  to  have  had  some  effect  on  her  daughter.  Surely  she 
would  share  her  luck,  if  luck  had  come  to  her. 

But  Lady  Joan  sat  apart  and  kept  her  eyes  upon  her  book. 
This  was  one  of  the  things  she  often  chose  to  do,  in  spite  of 
her  mother's  indignant  protest. 

"I  came  here  because  you  brought  me,"  she  would  answer. 
"  I  did  not  come  to  be  entertaining  or  polite." 

She   was  reading  this  evening.     She  heard  every  word   of 


T.  TEMBAEOM  373 

Lady  Mallowe's  agreeable  and  slightly  excited  conversation. 
She  did  not  know  exactly  what  had  happened;  but  she  knew 
that  it  was  something  which  had  buoyed  her  up  with  a  hopeful 
ness  which  exhilarated  her  almost  too  much  —  as  an  extra  glass 
of  wine  might  have  done.  Once  or  twice  she  even  lost  her  head 
a  little  and  was  a  trifle  swaggering.  T.  Tembarom  would  not 
recognize  the  slip,  but  Joan  saw  Palliser's  faint  smile  without 
looking  up  from  her  book.  He  observed  shades  in  taste  and 
bearing.  Before  her  own  future  Joan  saw  the  blank  wall  of 
stone  building  itself  higher  and  higher.  If  Sir  Moses  had 
capitulated,  she  would  be  counted  out.  With  what  degree  of 
boldness  could  a  mother  cast  her  penniless  daughter  on  the 
world?  What  unendurable  provision  make  for  her?  Dare 
they  offer  a  pound  a  week  and  send  her  to  live  in  the  slums 
until  she  chose  to  marry  some  Hebrew  friend  of  her  step 
father's?  That  she  knew  would  be  the  final  alternative.  A 
cruel  little  smile  touched  her  lips,  as  she  reviewed  the  number 
of  things  she  could  not  do  to  earn  her  living.  She  could  not 
take  in  sewing  or  washing,  and  there  was  nothing  she  could 
teach.  Starvation  or  marriage.  The  wall  built  itself  higher 
and  yet  higher.  What  a  hideous  thing  it  was  for  a  penniless 
girl  to  be  brought  up  merely  to  be  a  beauty,  and  in  consequence 
supposably  a  great  lady.  And  yet  if  she  was  born  to  a  certain 
rank  and  had  height  and  figure,  a  lovely  mouth,  a  delicate  nose, 
unusual  eyes  and  lashes,  to  train  her  to  be  a  dressmaker  or  a 
housemaid  would  be  a  stupid  investment  of  capital.  If  nothing 
tragic  interfered  and  the  right  man  wanted  such  a  girl,  she 
had  been  trained  to  please  him.  But  tragic  things  had  hap 
pened,  and  before  her  grew  the  wall  while  she  pretended  to 
read  her  book. 

T.  Tembarom  was  coming  toward  her.  She  had  heard  Pal- 
liser  suggest  a  game  of  billiards. 

"  Will  you  come  and  play  billiards  with  us  ? "  Tembarom 
asked.  "  Palliser  says  you  play  splendidly." 

"She  plays  brilliantly,"  put  in  Lady  Mallowe.  "Come, 
Joan." 

"No,  thank  you,"  she  answered.  "Let  me  stay  here  and 
read." 


374  T.  TEMBAROM 

Lady  Mallowe  protested.  She  tried  an  air  of  playful  ma 
ternal  reproach  because  she  was  in  good  spirits.  Joan  saw  Pal- 
liser  smiling  quietly,  and  there  was  that  in  his  smile  which 
suggested  to  her  that  he  was  thinking  her  an  obstinate  fool. 

"  You  had  better  show  Temple  Barholm  what  you  can  do," 
he  remarked.  "  This  will  be  your  last  chance,  as  you  leave  so 
soon.  You  ought  never  let  a  last  chance  slip  by.  I  never  do." 

Tembarom  stood  still  and  looked  down  at  her  from  his  good 
height.  He  did  not  know  what  Palliser's  speech  meant,  but  an 
instinct  made  him  feel  that  it  somehow  held  an  ugly,  quiet 
taunt. 

"  What  I  would  like  to  do,"  was  the  unspoken  crudity  which 
passed  through  his  mind,  "  would  be  to  swat  him  on  the  mouth. 
He 's  getting  at  her  just  when  she  ought  to  be  let  alone." 

"Would  you  like  it  better  to  stay  here  and  read?"  he  in 
quired. 

"  Much  better,  if  you  please,"  was  her  reply. 

"  Then  that  goes,"  he  answered,  and  left  her. 

He  swept  the  others  out  of  the  room  with  a  good-natured 
promptness  which  put  an  end  to  argument.  When  he  said  of 
anything  "  Then  that  goes,"  it  usually  did  so. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 


she  was  alone  Joan  sat  and  gazed 
not  at  her  wall  but  at  the  pictures  that 
came  back  to  her  out  of  a  part  of  her  life 
which  seemed  to  have  been  lived  centuries 
ago.  They  were  the  pictures  that  came 
back  continually  without  being  called,  the 
clearness  of  which  always  startled  her 
afresh.  Sometimes  she  thought  they 
sprang  up  to  add  to  her  torment,  but  some 
times  it  seemed  as  if  they  came  to  save  her 
from  herself  —  her  mad,  wicked  self. 
After  all,  there  were  moments  when  to 

know  that  she  had  been  the  girl  whose  eighteen-year-old  heart 
had  leaped  so  when  she  turned  and  met  Jem's  eyes,  as  he 
stood  gazing  at  her  under  the  beech-tree,  was  something  to 
cling  to."  She  had  been  that  girl  and  Jem  had  been  —  Jem. 
And  she  had  been  the  girl  who  had  'joined  him  in  that  young, 
ardent  vow  that  they  would  say  the  same  prayers  at  the  same 
hour  each  night  together.  Ah !  how  young  it  had  been  —  how 
young!  Her  throat  strained  itself  because  sobs  rose  in  it,  and 
her  eyes  were  hot  with  the  swell  of  tears. 

She  could  hear  voices  and  laughter  and  the  click  of  balls 
from  the  billiard-room.  Her  mother  and  Palliser  laughed  the 
most,  but  she  knew  the  sound  of  her  mother's  voice  would  cease 
soon,  because  she  would  come  back  to  her.  She  knew  she  would 
not  leave  her  long,  and  she  knew  the  kind  of  scene  they  would 
pass  through  together  when  she  returned.  The  old  things 
would  be  said,  the  old  arguments  used,  but  a  new  one  would  be 
added.  It  was  a  pleasant  thing  to  wait  here,  knowing  that  it 
was  coming,  and  that  for  all  her  fierce  pride  and  fierce  spirit 
she  had  no  defense.  It  was  at  once  horrible  and  ridiculous  that 

375 


376  T.  TEMBAROM 

she  must  sit  and  listen  —  and  stare  at  the  growing  wall.  It 
was  as  she  caught  her  breath  against  the  choking  swell  of  tears 
that  she  heard  Lady  Mallowe  returning.  She  came  in  with  an 
actual  sweep  across  the  room.  Her  society  air  had  fled,  and 
she  was  unadornedly  furious  when  she  stopped  before  Joan's 
chair.  For  a  few  seconds  she  actually  glared;  then  she  broke 
forth  in  a  suppressed  undertone: 

"  Come  into  the  billiard-room.    I  command  it  1 " 

Joan  lifted  her  eyes  from  her  book.  Her  voice  was  as  low 
as  her  mother's,  but  steadier. 

"  No,"  she  answered. 

"  Is  this  conduct  to  continue  ?     Is  it  ?  "  Lady  Mallowe  panted. 

"  Yes/'  said  Joan,  and  laid  'her  book  on  the  table  near  her. 
There  was  nothing  else  to  say.  Words  made  things  worse. 

Lady  Mallowe  had  lost  her  head,  but  she  still  spoke  in  the 
suppressed  voice. 

"  You  shall  behave  yourself ! "  she  cried,  under  her  breath, 
and  actually  made  a  passionate  half-start  toward  her.  "You 
violent-natured  virago!  The  very  look  on  your  face  is  enough 
to  drive  one  mad !  " 

"  I  know  I  am  violent-natured,"  said  Joan.  "  But  don't  you 
think  it  wise  to  remember  that  you  cannot  make  the  kind  of 
scene  here  that  you  can  in  your  own  house?  We  are  a  bad- 
tempered  pair,  and  we  behave  rather  like  fishwives  when  we 
are  in  a  rage.  But  when  we  are  guests  in  other  people's 
houses  — " 

Lady  Mallowe's  temper  was  as  elemental  as  any  Billingsgate 
could  provide. 

"  You  think  you  can  take  advantage  of  that ! "  she  said. 
"  Don't  trust  yourself  too  far.  Do  you  imagine  that  just  when 
all  might  go  well  for  me  I  will  allow  you  to  spoil  everything  ?  " 

"  How  can  I  spoil  everything  ?  " 

"By  behaving  as  you  have  been  behaving  since  we  came 
here  —  refusing  to  make  a  home  for  yourself ;  by  hanging  round 
my  neck  so  that  it  will  appear  that  any  one  who  takes  me  must 
take  you  also." 

"  There  are  servants  outside,"  Joan  warned  her. 

"  You  shall  not  stop  me !  "  cried  Lady  Mallowe. 


T.   TEMBAKOM  377 

"  You  cannot  stop  yourself/'  said  Joan.  "  That  is  the  worst 
of  it.  It  is  bad  enough  when  we  stand  and  hiss  at  each  other 
in  a  stage  whisper ;  but  when  you  lose  control  over  yourself  and 
raise  your  voice  — " 

"  I  came  in  here  to  tell  you  that  this  is  your  last  chance.  I 
shall  never  give  you  another.  Do  you  know  how  old  you  are  ?  " 

"  I  shall  soon  be  twenty-seven,"  Joan  answered.  "  I  wish  I 
were  a  hundred.  Then  it  would  all  be  over." 

"  But  it  will  not  be  over  for  years  and  years  and  years,"  her 
mother  flung  back  at  her.  "  Have  you  forgotten  that  the  very 
rags  you  wear  are  not  paid  for  ?  " 

"No,  I  have  not  forgotten."  The  scene  was  working  itself 
up  on  the  old  lines,  as  Joan  had  known  it  would.  Her  mother 
never  failed  to  say  the  same  things,  every  time  such  a  scene 
took  place. 

"  You  will  get  no  more  such  rags  —  paid  or  unpaid  for. 
What  do  you  expect  to  do?  You  don't  know  how  to  work,  and 
if  you  did  no  decent  woman  would  employ  you.  You  are  too 
good-looking  and  too  bad-tempered." 

Joan  knew  she  was  perfectly  right.  Knowing  it,  she  re 
mained  silent,  and  her  silence  added  to  her  mother's  helpless 
rage.  She  moved  a  step  nearer  to  her  and  flung  the  javelin 
which  she  always  knew  would  strike  deep. 

"You  have  made  yourself  a  laughing-stock  for  all  London 
for  years.  You  are  mad  about  a  man  who  disgraced  and  ruined 
himself." 

She  saw  the  javelin  quiver  as  it  struck;  but  Joan's  voice  as 
it  answered  her  had  a  quality  of  low  and  deadly  steadiness. 

"You  have  said  that  a  thousand  times,  and  you  will  say  it 
another  thousand  —  though  you  know  the  story  was  a  lie  and 
was  proved  to  be  one." 

Lady  Mallowe  knew  her  way  thoroughly. 

"  Who  remembers  the  denials  ?  What  the  world  remembers 
is  that  Jem  Temple  Barholm  was  stamped  as  a  cheat  and  a 
trickster.  No  one  has  time  to  remember  the  other  thing.  He 
is  dead  —  dead!  When  a  man's  dead  it's  too  late." 

She  was  desperate  enough  to  drive  her  javelin  home  deeper 
than  she  had  ever  chanced  to  drive  it  before.  The  truth  —  the 


378  T.  TEMBAROM 

awful  truth  she  uttered  shook  Joan  from  head  to  foot.  She 
sprang  up  and  stood  before  her  in  heart-wrung  fury. 

"  Oh !  You  are  a  hideously  cruel  woman ! "  she  cried. 
"  They  say  even  tigers  care  for  their  young !  But  you  —  you 
can  say  that  to  me.  '  When  a  man 's  dead,  it 's  too  late.'  " 

"  It  is  too  late  —  it  is  too  late ! "  Lady  Mallowe  persisted. 
Why  had  not  she  struck  this  note  before?  It  was  breaking 
her  will :  "  I  would  say  anything  to  bring  you  to  your  senses/' 

Joan  began  to  move  restlessly  to  and  fro. 

"  Oh,  what  a  fool  I  am !  "  she  exclaimed.  "  As  if  you  could 
understand  —  as  if  you  could  care !  " 

Struggle  as  she  might  to  be  defiant,  she  was  breaking,  Lady 
Mallowe  repeated  to  herself.  She  followed  her  as  a  hunter 
might  have  followed  a  young  leopardess  with  a  wound  in  its 
flank. 

"I  came  here  because  it  is  your  last  chance.  Palliser  knew 
what  he  was  saying  when  he  made  a  joke  of  it  just  now.  He 
knew  it  wasn't  a  joke.  You  might  have  been  the  Duchess  of 
Merthshire;  you  might  have  been  Lady  St.  Maur,  with  a  hus 
band  with  millions.  And  here  you  are.  You  know  what 's  be 
fore  you  —  when  I  am  out  of  the  trap." 

Joan  laughed.  It  was  a  wild  little  laugh,  and  she  felt  there 
was  no  sense  in  it. 

"  I  might  apply  for  a  place  in  Miss  Alicia's  Home  for  De 
cayed  Gentlewomen,"  she  said. 

Lady  Mallowe  nodded  her  head  fiercely. 

"Apply,  then.  There  will  be  no  place  for  you  in  the  home 
I  am  going  to  live  in,"  she  retorted. 

Joan  ceased  moving  about.  She  was  about  to  hear  the  one 
argument  that  was  new. 

"  You  may  as  well  tell  me,"  she  said,  wearily. 

"  I  have  had  a  letter  from  Sir  Moses  Monaldini.  He  is  to 
be  at  Broome  Haughton.  He  is  going  there  purposely  to  meet 
me.  What  he  writes  can  mean  only  one  thing.  He  means  to 
ask  me  to  marry  him.  I  'm  your  mother,  and  I  'm  nearly 
twenty  years  older  than  you;  but  you  see  that  I'm  out  of  the 
trap  first." 

"  I  knew  you  would  be,"  answered  Joan. 


T.  TEMBAROM  379 

"  He  detests  you/'  Lady  Mallowe  went  on.  "  He  will  not 
hear  of  your  living  with  us  —  or  even  near  us.  He  says  you 
are  old  enough  to  take  care  of  yourself.  Take  my  advice.  I 
am  doing  you  a  good  turn  in  giving  it.  This  New  York  news 
boy  is  mad  over  you.  If  he  had  n't  been  we  should  have  been 
bundled  out  of  the  house  before  this.  He  never  has  spoken 
to  a  lady  before  in  his  life,  and  he  feels  as  if  you  were  a  god 
dess.  Go  into  the  billiard-room  this  instant,  and  do  all  a 
woman  can.  Go ! "  And  she  actually  stamped  her  foot  on 
the  carpet. 

Joan's  thunder-colored  eyes  seemed  to  grow  larger  as  she 
stared  at  her.  Her  breast  lifted  itself,  and  her  face  slowly 
turned  pale.  Perhaps  —  she  thought  it  wildly  —  people  some 
times  did  die  of  feelings  like  this. 

"He  would  crawl  at  your  feet,"  her  mother  went  on,  pur 
suing  what  she  felt  sure  was  her  advantage.  She  was  so  sure 
of  it  that  she  added  words  only  a  fool  or  a  woman  half  hysteric 
with  rage  would  have  added.  "  You  might  live  in  the  very 
house  you  would  have  lived  in  with  Jem  Temple  Barholm,  on 
the  income  he  could  have  given  you." 

She  saw  the  crassness  of  her  blunder  the  next  moment.  If 
she  had  had  an  advantage,  she  had  lost  it.  Wickedly,  without 
a  touch  of  mirth,  Joan  laughed  in  her  face. 

"  Jem's  house  and  Jem's  money  —  and  the  New  York  news 
boy  in  his  shoes,"  she  flung  at  her.  "  T.  Tembarom  to  live 
with  until  one  lay  down  on  one's  deathbed.  T.  Tembarom ! " 

Suddenly,  something  was  giving  way  in  her,  Lady  Mallowe 
thought  again.  Joan  slipped  into  a  chair  and  dropped  her  head 
and  hidden  face  on  the  table. 

"Oh!    Mother!    Mother !"  she  ended.    "Oh!    Jem!    Jem!" 

Was  she  sobbing  or  trying  to  choke  sobbing  back?  There 
was  no  time  to  be  lost.  Her  mother  had  never  known  a  scene 
to  end  in  this  way  before. 

"  Crying ! "  there  was  absolute  spite  in  her  voice.  "  That 
shows  you  know  what  you  are  in  for,  at  all  events.  But  I  've 
said  my  last  word.  What  does  it  matter  to  me,  after  all? 
You  're  in  the  trap.  I  'm  not.  Get  out  as  best  you  can.  I  Ve 
done  with  you." 


380  T.  TEMBAROM 

She  turned  her  back  and  went  out  of  the  room  —  as  she  had 
come  into  it  —  with  a  sweep  Joan  would  have  smiled  at  as 
rather  vulgar  if  she  had  seen  it.  As  a  child  in  the  nursery,  she 
had  often  seen  that  her  ladyship  was  vulgar. 

But  she  did  not  see  the  sweep  because  her  face  was  hidden. 
Something  in  her  had  broken  this  time,  as  her  mother  had 
felt.  That  bitter,  sordid  truth,  driven  home  as  it  had  been, 
had  done  it.  Who  had  time  to  remember  denials,  or  lies  proved 
to  be  lies?  Nobody  in  the  world.  Who  had  time  to  give  to 
the  defense  of  a  dead  man?  There  was  not  time  enough  to 
give  to  living  ones.  It  was  true  —  true !  When  a  man  is  dead, 
it  is  too  late.  The  wall  had  built  itself  until  it  reached  her 
sky ;  but  it  was  not  the  wall  she  bent  her  head  and  sobbed  over. 
It  was  that  suddenly  she  had  seen  again  Jem's  face  as  he  had 
stood  with  slow-growing  pallor,  and  looked  round  at  the  ring 
of  eyes  which  stared  at  him ;  Jem's  face  as  he  strode  by  her  with 
out  a  glance  and  went  out  of  the  room.  She  forgot  everything 
else  on  earth.  She  forgot  where  she  was.  She  was  eighteen 
again,  and  she  sobbed  in  her  arms  as  eighteen  sobs  when  its 
heart  is  torn  from  it. 

"  Oh  Jem !  Jem  !  "  she  cried.  "  If  you  were  only  in  the 
same  world  with  me!  If  you  were  just  in  the  same  world!" 

She  had  forgotten  all  else,  indeed.  She  forgot  too  long. 
She  did  not  know  how  long.  It  seemed  that  no  more  than  a 
few  minutes  had  passed  before  she  was  without  warning  struck 
with  the  shock  of  feeling  that  some  one  was  in  the  room  with 
her,  standing  near  her,  looking  at  her.  She  had  been  mad  not 
to  remember  that  exactly  this  thing  would  be  sure  to  happen, 
by  some  abominable  chance.  Her  movement  as  she  rose  was 
almost  violent,  she  could  not  hold  herself  still,  and  her  face 
was  horribly  wet  with  shameless,  unconcealable  tears.  Shame 
less  she  felt  them  —  indecent — a  sort  of  nudity  of  the  soul. 
If  it  had  been  a  servant  who  had  intruded,  or  if  it  had  been 
Palliser  it  would  have  been  intolerable  enough.  But  it  was 
T.  Tembarom  who  confronted  her  with  his  common  face,  moved 
mysteriously  by  some  feeling  she  resented  even  more  than  she 
resented  his  presence.  He  was  too  grossly  ignorant  to  know 
that  a  man  of  breeding,  having  entered  by  chance,  would  have 


T.  TEMBAEOM  381 

turned  and  gone  away,  professing  not  to  have  seen.  He  seemed 
to  think  —  the  dolt !  —  that  he  must  make  some  apology. 

"  Say !  Lady  Joan !  "  he  began.  "  I  beg  your  pardon.  I 
didn't  want  to  butt  in." 

"  Then   go   away,"   she   commanded.     "  Instantly  —  instant- 

ly!" 

She  knew  he  must  see  that  she  spoke  almost  through  her 
teeth  in  her  effort  to  control  her  sobbing  breath.  But  he  made 
no  move  toward  leaving  her.  He  even  dre\y  nearer,  looking  at 
her  in  a  sort  of  meditative,  obstinate  way. 

"  N-no"  he  replied,  deliberately.     "  I  guess  —  I  won't." 

"  You  won't  ? "  Lady  Joan  repeated  after  him.  "  Then  I 
will." 

He  made  a  stride  forward  and  laid  his  hand  on  her  arm. 

"  No.  Not  on  your  life.  You  won't,  either  —  if  I  can  help 
it.  And  you  're  going  to  let  me  help  it." 

Almost  any  one  but  herself  —  any  one,  at  least,  who  did  not 
resent  his  very  existence  —  would  have  felt  the  drop  in  his 
voice  which  suddenly  struck  the  note  of  boyish,  friendly  ap 
peal  in  the  last  sentence.  "  You  're  going  to  let  me,"  he  re 
peated. 

She  stood  looking  down  at  the  daring,  unconscious  hand  on 
her  arm.- 

"  I  suppose,"  she  said,  with  cutting  slowness,  "  that  you  do 
not  even  know  that  you  are  insolent.  Take  your  hand  away," 
in  arrogant  command. 

He  removed  it  with  an  unabashed  half-smile. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said.  "  I  did  n't  even  know  I  'd 
put  it  there.  It  was  a  break  —  but  I  wanted  to  keep  you." 

That  he  not  only  wanted  to  keep  her,  but  intended  to  do  so 
was  apparent.  His  air  was  neither  rough  nor  brutal,  but  he 
had  ingeniously  placed  himself  in  the  outlet  between  the  big 
table  and  the  way  to  the  door.  He  put  his  hands  in  his  pockets 
in  his  vulgar,  unconscious  way,  and  watched  her. 

"  Say,  Lady  Joan ! "  he  broke  forth,  in  the  frank  outburst  of 
a  man  who  wants  to  get  something  over.  "  I  should  be  a  fool 
if  I  did  n't  see  that  you  're  up  against  it  —  hard !  What 's  the 
matter  ?  "  His  voice  dropped  again. 


382  T.  TEMBAROM 

There  was  something  in  the  drop  this  time  which  —  perhaps 
because  of  her  recent  emotion  —  sounded  to  her  almost  as  if 
he  were  asking  the  question  with  the  protecting  sympathy  of 
the  tone  one  would  use  in  speaking  to  a  child.  How  dare  he! 
But  it  came  home  to  her  that  Jem  had  once  said  "  What 's  the 
matter  ?  "  to  her  in  the  same  way. 

"  Do  you  think  it  likely  that  I  should  confide  in  you  ?  "  she 
said,  and  inwardly  quaked  at  the  memory  as  she  said  it. 

"  No,"  he  answered,  considering  the  matter  gravely.  "  It 's 
not  likely  —  the  way  things  look  to  you  now.  But  if  you  knew 
me  better  perhaps  it  would  be  likely." 

"  I  once  explained  to  you  that  I  do  not  intend  to  know  you 
better,"  she  gave  answer. 

He  nodded  acquiescently. 

"  Yes.  I  got  on  to  that.  And  it 's  because  it 's  up  to  me 
that  I  came  out  here  to  tell  you  something  I  want  you  to  know 
before  you  go  away.  I  'm  going  to  confide  in  you." 

"  Cannot  even  you  see  that  I  am  not  in  the  mood  to  accept 
confidences  ?  "  she  exclaimed. 

"  Yes,  I  can.  But  you  're  going  to  accept  this  one,"  steadily. 
"  No,"  as  she  made  a  swift  movement,  "  I  'm  not  going  to  clear 
the  way  till  I  've  done." 

"  I  insist !  "  she  cried.     "  If  you  were  — " 

He  put  out  his  hand,  but  not  to  touch  her. 

"I  know  what  you're  going  to  say.  If  I  were  a  gentle 
man  —  Well,  I  'm  not  laying  claim  to  that  —  but  I  'm  a  sort 
of  a  man,  anyhow,  though  you  mayn't  think  it.  And  you're 
going  to  listen." 

She  began  to  stare  at  him.  It  was  not  the  ridiculous  boyish 
drop  in  his  voice  which  arrested  her  attention.  It  was  a  fan 
tastic,  incongruous,  wholly  different  thing.  He  had  suddenly 
dropped  his  slouch  and  stood  upright.  Did  he  realize  that  he 
had  slung  his  words  at  her  as  if  they  were  an  order  given 
with  the  ring  of  authority? 

"  I  've  not  bucked  against  anything  you  've  said  or  done  since 
you've  been  here,"  he  went  on,  speaking  fast  and  grimly.  "I 
didn't  mean  to.  I  had  my  reasons.  There  were  things  that 
I  'd  have  given  a  good  deal  to  say  to  you  and  ask  you  about,  but 


T.  TEMBABOM  383 

you  would  n't  let  me.  You  would  n't  give  me  a  chance  to 
square  things  for  you  —  if  they  could  be  squared.  You  threw 
me  down  every  time  I  tried ! " 

He  was  too  wildly  incomprehensible  with  his  changes  from 
humanness  to  folly.  Eemembering  what  he  had  attempted  to 
say  on  the  day  he  had  followed  her  in  the  avenue,  she  was  in 
flamed  again. 

"  What  in  the  name  of  New  York  slang  does  that  mean  ?  " 
she  demanded. 

"  Never  mind  New  York/'  he  answered,  cool  as  well  as  grim. 
"  A  fellow  that 's  learned  slang  in  the  streets  has  learned  some 
thing  else  as  well.  He 's  learned  to  keep  his  eyes  open.  He 's 
on  to  a  way  of  seeing  things.  And  what  I  've  seen  is  that 
you  're  so  doggone  miserable  that  —  that  you  're  almost  down 
and  out." 

This  time  she  spoke  to  him  in  the  voice  with  the  quality  of 
deadliness  in  it  which  she  had  used  to  her  mother. 

"Do  you  think  that  because  you  are  in  your  own  house  you 
can  be  as  intrusively  insulting  as  you  choose  ?  "  she  said. 

"No,  I  don't,"  he  answered.  "What  I  think  is  quite  dif 
ferent.  I  think  that  if  a  man  lias  a  house  of  his  own,  and 
there 's  any  one  in  big  trouble  under  the  roof  of  it  —  a  woman 
most  of  alt  —  he 's  a  cheap  skate  if  he  don't  get  busy  and  try  to 
help  —  just  plain,  straight  help." 

He  saw  in  her  eyes  all  her  concentrated  disdain  of  him,  but 
he  went  on,  still  obstinate  and  cool  and  grim. 

"  I  guess  ( help '  is  too  big  a  word  just  yet.  That  may  come 
later,  and  it  may  n't.  What  I  'm  going  to  try  at  now  is  making 
it  easier  for  you  —  just  easier." 

Her  contemptuous  gesture  registered  no  impression  on  him 
as  he  paused  a  moment  and  looked  fixedly  at  her. 

"  You  just  hate  me,  don't  you  ? "  It  was  a  mere  statement 
which  could  n't  have  been  more  impersonal  to  himself  if  he  had 
been  made  of  wood.  "  That 's  all  right.  I  seem  like  a  low- 
down  intruder  to  you.  Well,  that's  all  right,  too.  But  what 
ain't  all  right  is  what  your  mother  has  set  you  on  to  thinking 
about  me.  You  'd  never  have  thought  it  yourself.  You  'd  have 
known  better." 


384  T.  TEMBAROM 

"What/'  fiercely,  "is  that?" 

"  That  I  'm  mutt  enough  to  have  a  mash  on  you." 

The  common  slangy  crassness  of  it  was  a  kind  of  shock. 
She  caught  her  breath  and  merely  stared  at  him.  But  he  was 
not  staring  at  her ;  he  was  simply  looking  straight  into  her  face, 
and  it  amazingly  flashed  upon  her  that  the  extraordinary  words 
were  so  entirely  unembarrassed  and  direct  that  they  were  ac 
tually  not  offensive. 

He  was  merely  telling  her  something  in  his  own  way,  not  caring 
the  least  about  his  own  effect,  but  absolutely  determined  that 
she  should  hear  and  understand  it. 

Her  caught  breath  ended  in  something  which  was  like  a  half- 
laugh.  His  queer,  sharp,  incomprehensible  face,  his  queer,  un 
moved  voice  were  too  extraordinarily  unlike  anything  she  had 
ever  seen  or  heard  before. 

"I  don't  want  to  be  brash  —  and  what  I  want  to  say  may 
seem  kind  of  that  way  to  you.  But  it  ain't.  Anyhow,  I  guess 
it  '11  relieve  your  mind.  Lady  Joan,  you  're  a  looker  —  you  're 
a  beaut  from  Beautville.  If  I  were  your  kind,  and  things  were 
different,  I  'd  be  crazy  about  you  —  crazy  !  But  I  'm  not  your 
kind  —  and  things  are  different."  He  drew  a  step  nearer  still 
to  her  in  his  intentness.  "  They  're  this  different.  Why,  Lady 
Joan !  I  'm  dead  stuck  on  another  girl !  " 

She  caught  her  breath  again,  leaning  forward. 

"Another  —  !" 

"  She  says  she 's  not  a  lady ;  she  threw  me  down  just  because 
all  this  darned  money  came  to  me,"  he  hastened  on,  and  sud 
denly  he  was  imperturbable  no  longer,  but  flushed  and  boyish, 
and  more  of  New  York  than  ever.  "  She 's  a  little  bit  of  a 
quiet  thing  and  she  drops  her  h's,  but  gee  — !  You  're  a  looker 
—  you  're  a  queen  and  she  's  not.  But  Little  Ann  Hutchinson  — 
Why,  Lady  Joan,  as  far  as  this  boy's  concerned" — and  he 
oddly  touched  himself  on  the  breast  — "  she  makes  you  look 
like  thirty  cents." 

Joan  quickly  sat  down  on  the  chair  she  had  just  left.  She 
rested  an  elbow  on  the  table  and  shaded  her  face  with  her  hand. 
She  was  not  laughing;  she  scarcely  knew  what  she  was  doing 
or  feeling. 


T.   TEMBAROM  385 

"You  are  in  love  with  Ann  Hutchinson,"  she  said,  in  a  low 
voice. 

"Am  I?"  he  answered  hotly.  "Well,  I  should  smile!" 
He  disdained  to  say  more. 

Then  she  began  to  know  what  she  felt.  There  came  back 
to  her  in  flashes  scenes  from  the  past  weeks  in  which  she  had 
done  her  worst  by  him;  in  which  she  had  swept  him  aside, 
loathed  him,  set  her  feet  on  him,  used  the  devices  of  an  ingenious 
demon  to  discomfit  and  show  him  at  his  poorest  and  least 
ready.  And  he  had  not  been  giving  a  thought  to  the  thing  for 
which  she  had  striven  to  punish  him.  And  he  plainly  did  not 
even  hate  her.  His  mind  was  clear,  as  water  is  clear.  He  had 
come  back  to  her  this  evening  to  do  her  a  good  turn  —  a  good 
turn.  Knowing  what  she  was  capable  of  in  the  way  of  arrogance 
and  villainous  temper,  he  had  determined  to  do  her  —  in  spite 
of  herself  —  a  good  turn. 

"  I  don't  understand  you,"  she  faltered. 

"  I  know  you  don't.  But  it 's  only  because  I  'm  so  dead  easy 
to  understand.  There 's  nothing  to  find  out.  I  'm  just  friendly 

—  friendly  —  that 's  all." 

"  You  would  have  been  friends  with  me ! "  she  exclaimed. 
"  You  would  have  told  me,  and  I  would  n't  let  you !  Oh !  " 
with  an  impulsive  flinging  out  of  her  hand  to  him,  "you  good 

—  good  fellow !  " 

"  Good  be  darned ! "  he  answered,  taking  the  hand  at  once. 

"You  are  good  to  tell  me!  I  have  behaved  like  a  devil  to 
you.  But  oh  !  if  you  only  knew !  " 

His  face  became  mature  again;  but  he  took  a  most  informal 
seat  on  the  edge  of  the  table  near  her. 

"  I  do  know  —  part  of  it.  That 's  why  I  've  been  trying  to 
be  friends  with  you  all  the  time."  He  said  his  next  words  delib 
erately.  "  If  I  was  the  woman  Jem  Temple  Barholm  had  loved 
would  n't  it  have  driven  me  mad  to  see  another  man  in  his 
place  —  and  remember  what  was  done  to  him.  I  never  even 
saw  him,  but,  good  God !  " —  she  saw  his  hand  clench  itself  — 
"  when  I  think  of  it  I  want  to  kill  somebody !  I  want  to  kill 
half  a  dozen.  Why  didn't  they  know  it  couldn't  be  true  of  a 
fellow  like  that !  " 


386  T.  TEMBAKOM 

i 

She  sat  up  stiffly  and  watched  him. 

"  Do  —  you  —  feel  like  that  —  about  him  ?  " 

"Do  I ! "  red-hotly.  "  TEere  were  men  there  that  knew 
him!  There  were  women  there  that  knew  him!  Why  wasn't 
there  just  one  to  stand  by  him  ?  A  man  that 's  been  square  all 
his  life  does  n't  turn  into  a  card-sharp  in  a  night.  Damn  fools ! 
I  beg  your  pardon/'  hastily.  And  then,  as  hastily  again :  "  No, 
I  mean  it.  Damn  fools ! " 

"  Oh !  "  she  gasped,  just  once. 

Her  passionate  eyes  were  suddenly  blinded  with  tears.  She 
caught  at  his  clenched  hand  and  dragged  it  to  her,  letting  her 
face  drop  on  it  and  crying  like  a  child. 

The  way  he  took  her  utter  breaking  down  was  just  like  him 
and  like  no  one  else.  He  put  the  other  hand  on  her  shoulder 
and  spoke  to  her  exactly  as  he  had  spoken  to  Miss  Alicia  on  that 
first  afternoon. 

"Don't  you  mind  me,  Lady  Joan,"  he  said.  "Don't  you 
mind  me  a  bit.  I  '11  turn  my  back.  I  '11  go  into  the  billiard- 
room  and  keep  them  playing  until  you  get  away  up-stairs.  Now 
we  understand  each  other,  it  '11  be  better  for  both  of  us." 

"  No,  don't  go !  Don't !  "  she  begged.  "  It  is  so  wonderful 
to  find  some  one  who  sees  the  cruelty  of  it."  She  spoke  fast 
and  passionately.  "  No  one  would  listen  to  any  defense  of  him. 
My  mother  simply  raved  when  I  said  what  you  are  saying." 

"  Do  you  want " —  he  put  it  to  her  with  a  curious  compre 
hending  of  her  emotion — "to  talk  about  him?  Would  it  do 
you  good  ?  " 

"Yes!  Yes!  I  have  never  talked  to  any  one.  There  has 
been  no  one  to  listen." 

"  Talk  all  you  want,"  he  answered,  with  immense  gentleness. 
"I'm  here." 

"  I  can't  understand  it  even  now,  but  he  would  not  see  me ! " 
she  broke  out.  "  I  was  half  mad.  I  wrote,  and  he  would  not 
answer.  I  went  to  his  chambers  when  I  heard  he  was  going  to 
leave  England.  I  went  to  beg  him  to  take  me  with  him,  mar 
ried  or  unmarried.  I  would  have  gone  on  my  knees  to  him. 
He  was  gone!  Oh,  why?  Why? 

"  You  did  n't  think  he  'd  gone  because  he  did  n't  love  you  ?  " 


T.  TEMBAROM  387 

he  put  it  to  her  quite  literally  and  unsentimentally.  "You 
knew  better  than  that  ?  " 

"  How  could  I  be  sure  of  anything !  When  he  left  the 
room  that  awful  night  he  would  not  look  at  me !  He  would  not 
look  at  me !  " 

"  Since  I  've  been  here  I  've  been  reading  a  lot  of  novels, 
and  I  've  found  out  a  lot  of  things  about  fellows  that  are  not 
the  common,  practical  kind.  Now,  he  was  n't.  He  'd  lived 
pretty  much  like  a  fellow  in  a  novel,  I  guess.  What's  struck 
me  about  that  sort  is  that  they  think  they  have  to  make  noble 
sacrifices,  and  they  '11  just  walk  all  over  a  woman  because  they 
won't  do  anything  to  hurt  her.  There's  not  a  bit  of  sense  in 
it,  but  that  was  what  he  was  doing.  He  believed  he  was  doing 
the  square  thing  by  you  —  and  you  may  bet  your  life  it  hurt 
him  like  hell.  I  beg  your  pardon  —  but  that 's  the  word  —  just 
plain  hell." 

"  I  was  only  a  girl.  He  was  like  iron.  He  went  away  alone. 
He  was  killed,  and  when  he  was  dead  the  truth  was  told." 

"  That 's  what  I  've  remembered  " —  quite  slowly  — "  every 
time  I  've  looked  at  you.  By  gee !  I  'd  have  stood  anything 
from  a  woman  that  had  suffered  as  much  as  that." 

It  made  her  cry  —  his  genuineness  —  and  she  did  not  care 
in  the  least  that  the  tears  streamed  down  her  cheeks.  How  he 
had  stood  things!  How  he  had  borne,  in  that  odd,  unimpres 
sive  way,  insolence  and  arrogance  for  which  she  ought  to  have 
been  beaten  and  blackballed  by  decent  society !  She  could 
scarcely  bear  it. 

"  Oh !  to  think  it  should  have  been  you"  she  wept,  "  just 
you  who  understood  !  " 

"Well,"  he  answered  speculatively,  "I  mightn't  have  un 
derstood  as  well  if  it  had  n't  been  for  Ann.  By  jings !  I  used 
to  lie  awake  at  night  sometimes  thinking  '  supposing  it  had  been 
Ann  and  me ! '  I  'd  sort  of  work  it  out  as  it  might  have  hap 
pened  in  New  York  —  at  the  office  of  the  Sunday  Earth. 
Supposing  some  fellow  that'd  had  a  grouch  against  me  had 
managed  it  so  that  Galton  thought  I  'd  been  getting  away  with 
money  that  didn't  belong  to  me  —  fixing  up  my  expense  ac 
count,  or  worse.  And  Galton  wouldn't  listen  to  what  I  said. 


388  T.  TEMBAROM 

and  fired  me ;  and  I  could  n't  get  a  job  anywhere  else  because 
I  was  down  and  out  for  good.  And  nobody  would  listen.  And 
I  was  killed  without  clearing  myself.  And  Little  Ann  was  left 
to  stand  it  —  Little  Ann !  Old  Hutchinson  would  n't  listen,  I 
know  that.  And  it  would  be  all  shut  up  burning  in  her  big 
little  heart  —  burning.  And  T.  T.  dead,  and  not  a  word  to 
say  for  himself.  Jehoshaphat !  " —  taking  out  his  handkerchief 
and  touching  his  forehead  — "  it  used  to  make  the  cold  sweat 
start  out  on  me.  It 's  doing  it  now.  Ann  and  me  might  have 
been  Jem  and  you.  That's  why  I  understood." 

He  put  out  his  hand  and  caught  hers  and  frankly  squeezed 
it  —  squeezed  it  hard;  and  the  unconventional  clutch  was  a 
wonderful  thing  to  her. 

"It's  all  right  now,  ain't  it?"  he  said.  "We've  got  it 
straightened  out.  You'll  not  be  afraid  to  come  back  here  if 
your  mother  wants  you  to."  He  stopped  for  a  moment  and 
then  went  pn  with  something  of  hesitation :  "  We  don't  want  to 
talk  about  your  mother.  We  can't.  But  I  understand  her,  too. 
Folks  are  different  from  each  other  in  their  ways.  She  's  dif 
ferent  from  you.  I  '11  —  I  '11  straighten  it  out  with  her  if  you 
like." 

"Nothing  will  need  straightening  out  after  I  tell  her  that 
you  are  going  to  marry  Little  Ann  Hutchinson,"  said  Joan,  with 
a  half-smile.  "  And  that  you  were  engaged  to  her  before  you 
saw  me." 

"  Well,  that  does  sort  of  finish  things  up,  does  n't  it  ?  "  said 
T.  Tembarom. 

He  looked  at  her  so  speculatively  for  a  moment  after  this  that 
she  wondered  whether  he  had  something  more  to  say.  He  had. 

"  There  's  something  I  want  to  ask  you,"  he  ventured. 

"  Ask  anything." 

"  Do  you  know  any  one  —  just  any  one  —  who  has  a  photo  — 
just  any  old  photo  —  of  Jem  Temple  Barholm  ?  " 

She  was  rather  puzzled. 

"  Yes.  I  know  a  woman  who  has  worn  one  for  nearly  eight 
years.  Do  you  want  to  see  it  ?  " 

"  I  'd  give  a  good  deal  to,"  was  his  answer. 

She  took  a  flat  locket  from  her  dress  and  handed  it  to  him. 


T.  TEMBAEOM  389 

"  Women  don't  wear  lockets  in  these  days."  He  could  barely 
hear  her  voice  because  it  was  so  low.  "  But  I  've  never  taken  it 
off.  I  want  him  near  my  heart.  It  's  Jem  !  " 

He  held  it  on  the  palm  of  his  hand  and  stood  under  the  light, 
studying  it  as  if  he  wanted  to  be  sure  he  would  n't  forget  it. 

"It 's  —  sorter  like  that  picture  of  Miles  Hugo,  ain't  it  ?  "  he 
suggested. 

"  Yes.  People  always  said  so.  That  was  why  you  found  me 
in  the  picture-gallery  the  first  time  we  met/' 

"  I  knew  that  was  the  reason  —  and  I  knew  I  'd  made  a  break 
when  I  butted  in,"  he  answered.  Then,  still  looking  at  the 
photograph,  "You'd  know  this  face  again  most  anywhere  you 
saw  it,  I  guess." 

"  There  are  no  faces  like  it  anywhere,"  said  Joan. 

"  I  guess  that 's  so,"  he  replied.  "  And  it 's  one  that 
would  n't  change  much  either.  Thank  you,  Lady  Joan." 

He  handed  back  the  picture,  and  she  put  out  her  hand  again. 

"  I  think  I  '11  go  to  my  room  now,"  she  said.  "  You  've  done 
a  strange  thing  to  me.  You  Ve  taken  nearly  all  the  hatred  and 
bitterness  out  of  my  heart.  I  shall  want  to  come  back  here 
whether  my  mother  comes  or  not  —  I  shall  want  to." 

"  The  sooner  the  quicker,"  he  said.  "  And  so  long  as  I  'm 
here  I  '11  be  ready  and  waiting." 

"  Don't  go  away,"  she  said  softly.     "  I  shall  need  you." 

"  Is  n't  that  great  ?  "  he  cried,  flushing  delightedly.  "  Is  n't 
it  just  great  that  we've  got  things  straightened  so  that  you 
can  say  that.  Gee !  This  is  a  queer  old  world !  There  's  such 
a  lot  to  do  in  it,  and  so  few  hours  in  the  day.  Seems  like  there 
ain't  time  to  stop  long  enough  to  hate  anybody  and  keep  a 
grouch  on.  A  fellow's  got  to  keep  hustling  not  to  miss  the 
things  worth  while." 

The  liking  in  her  eyes  was  actually  wistful. 

"  That 's  your  way  of  thinking,  is  n't  it  ?  "  she  said.  "  Teach 
it  to  me  if  you  can.  I  wish  you  could.  Good-night."  She 
hesitated  a  second.  "  God  Ness  you ! "  she  added,  quite  sud 
denly —  almost  fantastic  as  the  words  sounded  to  her.  That 
she,  Joan  Fayre,  should  be  calling  down  devout  benisons  on  the 
head  of  T.  Tembarom  —  T.  Tembarom ! 


390  T.  TEMBAROM 

Her  mother  was  in  her  room  when  she  reached  it.  She  had 
come  up  early  to  look  over  her  possessions  —  and  Joan's  —  be 
fore  she  began  her  packing.  The  bed,  the  chairs,  and  tables  were 
spread  with  evening,  morning,  and  walking-dresses,  and  the 
millinery  collected  from  their  combined  wardrobes.  She  was 
examining  anxiously  a  lace  appliqued  and  embroidered  white 
coat,  and  turned  a  slightly  flushed  face  toward  the  opening  door. 

"  I  am  going  over  your  things  as  well  as  my  own/'  she  said. 
"  I  shall  take  what  I  can  use.  You  will  require  nothing  in 
London.  You  will  require  nothing  anywhere  in  future. 
What  is  the  matter?"  she  said  sharply,  as  she  saw  her  daugh 
ter's  face. 

Joan  came  forward  feeling  it  a  strange  thing  that  she  was 
not  in  the  mood  to  fight  —  to  lash  out  and  be  glad  to  do  it. 

"  Captain  Palliser  told  me  as  I  came  up  that  Mr.  Temple 
Barholm  had  been  talking  to  you,"  her  mother  went  on.  "  He 
heard  you  having  some  sort  of  scene  as  he  passed  the  door.  As 
you  have  made  your  decision,  of  course  I  know  I  need  n't  hope 
that  anything  has  happened." 

"What  has  happened  has  nothing  to  do  with  my  decision. 
He  was  n't  waiting  for  that,"  Joan  answered  her.  "  We  were 
both  entirely  mistaken,  Mother." 

"  What  are  you  talking  about  ?  "  cried  Lady  Mallowe,  but  she 
temporarily  laid  the  white  coat  on  a  chair.  "What  do  you 
mean  by  mistaken  ?  " 

"  He  does  n't  want  me  —  he  never  did,"  Joan  answered  again. 
A  shadow  of  a  smile  hovered  over  her  face,  and  there  was  no 
derision  in  it,  only  a  warming  recollection  of  his  earnestness 
when  he  had  said  the  words  she  quoted :  "  He  is  what  they  call 
in  New  York  '  dead  stuck  on  another  girl.' '; 

Lady  Mallowe  sat  down  on  the  chair  that  held  the  white 
coat,  and  she  did  not  push  the  coat  aside. 

"  He  told  you  that  in  his  vulgar  slang ! "  she  gasped  it  out. 
"  You  —  you  ought  to  have  struck  him  dead  with  your  answer." 

"  Except  poor  Jem  Temple  Barholm,"  was  the  amazing  reply 
she  received,  "  he  is  the  only  friend  I  ever  had  in  my  life." 


CHAPTEK  XXXII 


T  was  business  of  serious  importance  which  was 
to  bring  Captain  Palliser's  visit  to  a  close. 
He  explained  it  perfectly  to  Miss  Alicia  a  day 
or  so  after  Lady  Mallowe  and  her  daughter 
left  them.  He  had  lately  been  most  amiable 
in  his  manner  toward  Miss  Alicia,  and  had 
given  her  much  valuable  information  about 
companies  and  stocks.  He  rather  unexpectedly 
found  it  imperative  that  he  should  go  to  Lon 
don  and  Berlin  to  "  see  people " —  dealers  in  great  financial 
schemes  who  were  deeply  interested  in  solid  business  speculations, 
such  as  his  own,  which  were  fundamentally  different  from  all 
others  in  the  impeccable  firmness  of  their  foundations. 

"  I  suppose  he  will  be  very  rich  some  day,"  Miss  Alicia  re 
marked  the  first  morning  she  and  T.  Tembarom  took  their 
breakfast  alone  together  after  his  departure.  "  It  would  frighten 
me  to  think  of  having  as  much  money  as  he  seems  likely  to 
have  quite  soon." 

"  It  would  scare  me  to  death,"  said  Tembarom.  She  knew 
he  was  making  a  sort  of  joke,  but  she  thought  the  point  of  it 
was  her  tremor  at  the  thought  of  great  fortune. 

"  He  seemed  to  think  that  it  would  be  an  excellent  thing  for 
you  to  invest  in  —  I  'm  not  sure  whether  it  was  the  India  Eubber 
Tree  Company,  or  the  mahogany  forests  or  the  copper  mines 
that  have  so  much  gold  and  silver  mixed  in  them  that  it  will  pay 
for  the  expense  of  the  digging — "  she  went  on. 

"  I  guess  it  was  the  whole  lot,"  put  in  Tembarom. 
"  Perhaps  it  was.     They  are   all  going  to  make  everybody 
so  rich  that  it  is  quite  bewildering.     He  is  very  clever  in  busi 
ness  matters.     And  so  kind.     He  even  said  that  if  I   really 
wished  it  he  might  be  able  to  invest  my  income  for  me  and 

391 


392  T.  TEMBAROM 

actually  treble  it  in  a  year.  But  of  course  I  told  him  that  my 
income  was  your  generous  gift  to  me,  and  that  it  was  far  more 
than  sufficient  for  my  needs." 

Tembarom  put  down  his  coffee-cup  so  suddenly  to  look  at 
her  that  she  was  fearful  that  she  had  appeared  to  do  Captain 
Palliser  some  vague  injustice. 

"  I  am  sure  he  meant  to  be  most  obliging,  dear,"  she  ex 
plained.  "  I  was  really  quite  touched.  He  said  most  sympa 
thetically  and  delicately  that  when  women  were  unmarried,  and 
unaccustomed  to  investment,  sometimes  a  business  man  could 
be  of  use  to  them.  He  forgot" — affectionately — "that  I  had 
you." 

Tembarom  regarded  her  with  tender  curiosity.  She  often 
opened  up  vistas  for  him  as  he  himself  opened  them  for  the 
Duke  of  Stone. 

"  If  you  had  n't  had  me,  would  you  have  let  him  treble  your 
income  in  a  year  ?  "  he  asked. 

Her  expression  was  that  of  a  soft,  woodland  rabbit  or  a  trust 
ing  spinster  dove. 

"Well,  of  course,  if  one  were  quite  alone  in  the  world  and 
had  only  a  small  income,  it  would  be  nice  to  have  it  wonderfully 
added  to  in  such  a  short  time,"  she  answered.  "  But  it  was  his 
friendly  solicitude  which  touched  me.  I  have  not  been  accus 
tomed  to  such  interested  delicacy  on  the  part  of  —  of  gentlemen." 
Her  hesitance  before  the  last  word  being  the  result  of  training, 
which  had  made  her  feel  that  it  was  a  little  bold  for  "  ladies  " 
to  refer  quite  openly  to  "  gentlemen." 

"You  sometimes  read  in  the  newspapers,"  said  Tembarom, 
buttering  his  toast,  "  about  ladies  who  are  all  alone  in  the  world 
with  a  little  income,  but  they're  not  often  left  alone  with  it 
long.  It 's  like  you  said  —  you  've  got  me;  but  if  the  time  ever 
comes  when  you  have  n't  got  me  ju'it  you  make  a  dead-sure  thing 
of  it  that  you  don't  let  any  solicitous  business  gentleman  treble 
your  income  in  a  year.  If  it's  an  income  that  comes  to  more 
than  five  cents,  don't  you  hand  it  over  to  be  made  into  fifteen. 
Five  cents  is  a  heap  better  —  just  plain  five." 

"  Temple !  "  gasped  Miss  Alicia.  "  You  —  you  surely  can 
not  mean  that  you  do  not  think  Captain  Palliser  is  —  sincere !  " 


T.  TEMBABOM  393 

Tembarom  laughed  outright,  his  most  hilarious  and  comfort 
ing  laugh.  He  had  no  intention  of  enlightening  her  in  such  a 
manner  as  would  lead  her  at  once  to  behold  pictures  of  him  as 
the  possible  victim  of  appalling  catastrophes.  He  liked  her  too 
well  as  she  was. 

"  Sincere  ?  "  he  said.  "  He  's  sincere  down  to  the  ground 
—  in  what  he  's  reaching  after.  But  he 's  not  going  to  treble 
your  income,  nor  mine.  If  he  ever  makes  that  offer  again,  you 
just  tell  him  I  'm  interested,  and  that  I  '11  talk  it  over  with 
him." 

"  I  could  not  help  saying  to  him  that  I  did  n't  think  you 
could  want  any  more  money  when  you  had  so  much,"  she  added, 
"but  he  said  one  never  knew  what  might  happen.  He  was 
greatly  interested  when  I  told  him  you  had  once  said  the  very 
same  thing  yourself." 

Their  breakfast  was  at  an  end,  and  he  got  up,  laughing  again, 
as  he  came  to  her  end  of  the  table  and  put  his  arm  around  her 
shoulders  in  the  unconventional  young  caress  she  adored  him  for. 

"  It 's  nice  to  be  by  ourselves  again  for  a  while/'  he  said.  "  Let 
us  go  for  a  walk  together.  Put  on  the  little  bonnet  and  dress 
that  are  the  color  of  a  mouse.  Those  little  duds  just  get  me. 
You  look  so  pretty  in  them." 

The  sixteen-year-old  blush  ran  up  to  the  roots  of  her  gray 
side-ringlets.  Just  imagine  his  remembering  the  color  of  her 
dress  and  bonnet,  and  thinking  that  anything  could  make  her  look 
pretty!  She  was  overwhelmed  with  innocent  and  grateful  con 
fusion.  There  really  was  no  one  else  in  the  least  like  him. 

"You  do  look  well,  ma'am,"  Eose  said,  when  she  helped  her 
to  dress.  "  You  've  got  such  a  nice  color,  and  that  tiny  bit  of  old 
rose  Mrs.  Hellish  put  in  the  bonnet  does  bring  it  out." 

"  I  wonder  if  it  is  wrong  of  me  to  be  so  pleased,"  Miss  Alicia 
thought.  "  I  must  make  it  a  subject  of  prayer,  and  ask  to  be 
aided  to  conquer  a  haughty  and  vain-glorious  spirit." 

She  was  pathetically  serious,  having  been  trained  to  a  view  of 
the  Great  First  Cause  as  figuratively  embodied  in  the  image  of 
a  gigantic,  irascible,  omnipotent  old  gentleman,  especially  wrought 
to  fury  by  feminine  follies  connected  with  becoming  headgear. 

"  It  has  sometimes  even  seemed  to  me  that  our  Heavenly  Father 


394  T.  TEMBABOM 

has  a  special  objection  to  ladies,"  she  had  once  timorously  con 
fessed  to  Tembarom.  "  I  suppose  it  is  because  we  are  so  much 
weaker  than  men,  and  so  much  more  given  to  vanity  and  petty 
vices." 

He  had  caught  her  in  his  arms  and  actually  hugged  her  that 
time.  Their  intimacy  had  reached  the  point  where  the  affection 
ate  outburst  did  not  alarm  her. 

"  Say !  "  he  had  laughed.  "  It 's  not  the  men  who  are  going  to 
have  the  biggest  pull  with  the  authorities  when  folks  try  to  get 
into  the  place  where  things  are  evened  up.  What  I  'm  going  to 
work  my  passage  with  is  a  list  of  the  few  l  ladies '  I  've  known. 
You  and  Ann  will  be  at  the  head  of  it.  I  shall  just  slide  it  in 
at  the  box-office  window  and  say,  f  Just  look  over  this,  will  you  ? 
These  were  friends  of  mine,  and  they  were  mighty  good  to  me. 
I  guess  if  they  didn't  turn  me  down,  you  needn't.  I  know 
they  're  in  here.  Eeserved  seats.  I  'm  not  expecting  to  be  put 
with  them  but  if  I  'm  allowed  to  hang  around  where  they  are 
that  '11  be  heaven  enough  for  me.' '; 

"  I  know  you  don't  mean  to  be  irreverent,  dear  Temple/'  she 
gasped.  "  I  am  quite  sure  you  don't !  It  is  —  it  is  only  your 
American  way  of  expressing  your  kind  thoughts.  And  of 
course  " —  quite  hastily  — "  the  Almighty  must  understand 
Americans  —  as  he  made  so  many."  And  half  frightened  though 
she  was,  she  patted  his  arm  with  the  warmth  of  comfort  in  her 
soul  and  moisture  in  her  eyes.  Somehow  or  other,  he  was  always 
so  comforting. 

He  held  her  arm  as  they  took  their  walk.  She  had  become 
used  to  that  also,  and  no  longer  thought  it  odd.  It  was  only  one 
of  the  ways  he  had  of  making  her  feel  that  she  was  being  taken 
care  of.  They  had  not  been  able  to  have  many  walks  together 
since  the  arrival  of  the  visitors,  and  this  occasion  was  at  once  a 
cause  of  relief  and  inward  rejoicing.  The  entire  truth  was  that 
she  had  not  been  altogether  happy  about  him  of  late.  Some 
times,  when  he  was  not  talking  and  saying  amusing  New  York 
things  which  made  people  laugh,  he  seemed  almost  to  forget 
where  he  was  and  to  be  thinking  of  something  which  baffled 
and  tried  him.  The  way  in  which  he  pulled  himself  together 
when  he  realized  that  any  one  was  looking  at  him  was,  to  her 


T.  TEMBAEOM  395 

mind,  the  most  disturbing  feature  of  his  fits  of  abstraction.  It 
suggested  that  if  he  really  had  a  trouble  it  was  a  private  one 
on  which  he  would  not  like  her  to  intrude.  Naturally,  her 
adoring  eyes  watched  him  oftener  than  he  knew,  and  she  tried  to 
find  plausible  and  not  too  painful  reasons  for  his  mood.  He 
always  made  light  of  his  unaccustomedness  to  his  new  life;  but 
perhaps  it  made  him  feel  more  unrestful  than  he  would  admit. 

As  they  walked  through  the  park  and  the  village,  her  heart  was 
greatly  warmed  by  the  way  in  which  each  person  they  met  greeted 
him.  They  greeted  no  one  else  in  the  same  way,  and  yet  it  was 
difficult  to  explain  what  the  difference  was.  They  liked  him  — 
really  liked  him,  though  how  he  had  overcome  their  natural  dis 
trust  of  his  newsboy  and  bootblack  record  no  one  but  himself 
knew.  In  fact,  she  had  reason  to  believe  that  even  he  himself 
did  not  know  —  had  indeed  never  asked  himself.  They  had 
gradually  begun  to  like  liim,  though  none  of  them  had  ever  ac 
cused  him  of  being  a  gentleman  according  to  their  own  accept 
ance  of  the  word.  Every  man  touched  his  cap  or  forehead  with 
a  friendly  grin  which  spread  itself  the  instant  he  caught  sight 
of  him.  Grin  and  salute  were  synchronous.  It  was  as  if  there 
were  some  extremely  human  joke  between  them.  Miss  Alicia 
had  delightedly  remembered  a  remark  the  Duke  of  Stone  had 
made  to  her  on  his  return  from  one  of  their  long  drives. 

"  He  is  the  most  popular  man  in  the  county,"  he  had  chuckled. 
"  If  war  broke  out  and  he  were  in  the  army,  he  could  raise  a 
regiment  at  his  own  gates  which  would  follow  him  wheresoever 
he  chose  to  lead  it  —  if  it  were  into  hottest  Hades." 

Tembarom  was  rather  silent  during  the  first  part  of  their  walk, 
and  when  he  spoke  it  was  of  Captain  Palliser. 

"  He 's  a  fellow  that 's  got  lots  of  curiosity.  I  guess  he  'a 
asked  you  more  questions  than  he  's  asked  me,"  he  began  at  last, 
and  he  looked  at  her  interestedly,  though  she  was  not  aware 
of  it. 

"  I  thought  — "  she  hesitated  slightly  because  she  did  not  wish 
to  be  critical  — "  I  sometimes  thought  he  asked  me  too  many." 

"  What  was  he  trying  to  get  on  to  mostly  ?  " 

"  He  asked  so  many  things  about  you  and  your  life  in  New 
York  —  but  more,  I  think,  about  you  and  Mr.  Strangeways. 


396  T.  TEMBAROM 

He  was  really  quite  persistent  once  or  twice  about  poor  Mr. 
Strangeways." 

"What  did  he  ask?" 

"  He  asked  if  I  had  seen  him,  and  if  you  had  preferred  that 
I  should  not.  He  calls  him  your  Mystery,  and  thinks  your  keep 
ing  him  here  is  so  extraordinary." 

"  I  guess  it  is  —  the  way  he  'd  look  at  it,"  Tembarom  dropped 
in. 

"  He  was  so  anxious  to  find  out  what  he  looked  like.  He  asked 
how  old  he  was  and  how  tall,  and  whether  he  was  quite  mad 
or  only  a  little,  and  where  you  picked  him  up,  and  when,  and 
what  .reason  you  gave  for  not  putting  him  in  some  respectable 
asylum.  I  could  only  say  that  I  really  knew  nothing  about  him, 
and  that  I  had  n't  seen  him  because  he  had  a  dread  of  strangers 
and  I  was  a  little  timid." 

She  hesitated  again. 

"  I  wonder,"  she  said,  still  hesitating  even  after  her  pause,  "  I 
wonder  if  I  ought  to  mention  a  rather  rude  thing  I  saw  him  do 
twice?" 

"  Yes,  you  ought,"  Tembarom  answered  promptly ;  "  I  \e  a 
reason  for  wanting  to  know." 

"  It  was  such  a  singular  thing  to  do  —  in  the  circum 
stances,"  she  went  on  obediently.  "He  knew,  as  we  all  know, 
that  Mr.  Strangeways  must  not  be  disturbed.  One  afternoon  I 
saw  him  walk  slowly  backward  and  forward  before  the  west  room 
window.  He  had  something  in  his  hand  and  kept  looking  up. 
That  was  what  first  attracted  my  attention  —  his  queer  way  of 
looking  up.  Quite  suddenly  he  threw  something  which  rattled 
on  the  panes  of  glass  —  it  sounded  like  gravel  or  small  pebbles. 
I  couldn't  help  believing  he  thought  Mr.  Strangeways  would 
be  startled  into  coming  to  the  window." 

Tembarom  cleared  his  throat. 

"  He  did  that  twice,"  he  said.  "  Pearson  caught  him  at  it, 
though  Palliser  did  n't  know  he  did.  He  'd  have  done  it  three 
times,  or  more  than  that,  perhaps,  but  I  casually  mentioned  in 
the  smoking-room  one  night  that  some  curious  fool  of  a  gardener- 
boy  had  thrown  some  stones  and  frightened  Strangeways,  and  that 
Pearson  and  I  were  watching  for  him,  and  that  if  I  caught 


T.   TEMBAROM  397 

him  I  was  going  to  knock  his  block  off  —  bing !  He  did  n't  do  it 
again.  Darned  fool !  What  does  he  think  he  's  after  ?  " 

"  I  am  afraid  he  is  rather  —  I  hope  it  is  not  wrong  to  say  so 
—  but  he  is  rather  given  to  gossip.  And  I  dare  say  that  the 
temptation  to  find  something  quite  new  to  talk  about  was  a 
great  one.  So  few  new  things  happen  in  the  neighborhood,  and, 
as  the  duke  says,  people  are  so  bored  —  and  he  is  bored  himself." 

"He'll  be  more  bored  if  he  tries  it  again  when  he  comes 
back,"  remarked  Tembarom. 

Miss  Alicia's  surprised  expression  made  him  laugh. 

"  Do  you  think  he  will  come  back  ?  "  she  exclaimed.  "  After 
such  a  long  visit  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  he  '11  come  back.  He  '11  come  back  as  often  as  he 
can  until  he  's  got  a  chunk  of  my  income  to  treble  —  or  until 
I  've  done  with  him." 

"  Until  you  've  done  with  him,  dear  ?  "  inquiringly. 

"  Oh !  well," —  casually  — "  I  've  a  sort  of  idea  that  he 
may  tell  me  something  I  'd  like  to  know.  I  'm  not  sure ;  I  'm 
only  guessing.  But  even  if  he  knows  it  he  won't  tell  me  until  he 
gets  good  and  ready  and  thinks  I  don't  want  to  hear  it.  What 
he  thinks  he  's  going  to  get  at  by  prowling  around  is  something 
he  can  get  me  in  the  crack  of  the  door  with." 

"  Temple  " —  imploringly  — "  are  you  afraid  he  wishes  to  do 
you  an  injury  ?  " 

"  No,  I  'm  not  afraid.  I  'm  just  waiting  to  see  him  take  a 
chance  on  it,"  and  he  gave  her  arm  an  affectionate  squeeze  against 
his  side.  He  was  always  immensely  moved  by  her  little  alarms 
for  him.  They  reminded  him,  in  a  remote  way,  of  Little  Ann 
coming  down  Mrs.  Bowse's  staircase  bearing  with  her  the  tartan 
comforter. 

How  could  any  one  —  how  could  any  one  want  to  do  him  an 
injury?  she  began  to  protest  pathetically.  But  he  would  not 
let  her  go  on.  He  would  not  talk  any  more  of  Captain  Palliser 
or  allow  her  to  talk  of  him.  Indeed,  her  secret  fear  was  that 
he  really  knew  something  he  did  not  wish  her  to  be  troubled  by, 
and  perhaps  thought  he  had  said  too  much.  He  began  to  make 
jokes  and  led  her  to  other  subjects.  He  asked  her  to  go  to 
the  Hibblethwaites'  cottage  and  pay  a  visit  to  Tummas.  He 


398  T.  TEMBAROM 

had  learned  to  understand  his  accepted  privileges  in  making  of 
cottage  visits  by  this  time;  and  when  he  clicked  any  wicket-gate 
the  door  was  open  before  he  had  time  to  pass  up  the  wicket-path. 
They  called  at  several  cottages,  and  he  nodded  at  the  windows  of 
others  where  faces  appeared  as  he  passed  by. 

They  had  a  happy  morning  together,  and  he  took  her  back  to 
Temple  Barholm  beaming,  and  forgetting  Captain  Palliser's 
existence,  for  the  time,  at  least.  In  the  afternoon  they  drove 
out  together,  and  after  dining  they  read  the  last  copy  of  the 
Sunday  Earth,  which  had  arrived  that  day.  He  found  quite  an 
interesting  paragraph  about  Mr.  Hutchinson  and  the  invention. 
Little  Miss  Hutchinson  was  referred  to  most  flatteringly  by  the 
writer,  who  almost  inferred  that  she  was  responsible  not  only 
for  the  inventor  but  for  the  invention  itself.  Miss  Alicia  felt 
quite  proud  of  knowing  so  prominent  a  character,  and  wondered 
what  it  could  be  like  to  read  about  oneself  in  a  newspaper. 

About  nine  o'clock  he  laid  his  sheet  of  the  Earth  down  and 
spoke  to  her. 

"  I  'm  going  to  ask  you  to  do  me  a  favor,"  he  said.  "  I 
could  n't  ask  it  if  we  were  n't  alone  like  this.  I  know  you  won't 
mind." 

Of  course  she  would  n't  mind.  She  was  made  happier  by  the 
mere  idea  of  doing  something  for  him. 

"  I  'm  going  to  ask  you  to  go  to  your  room  rather  early,"  he 
explained.  "  I  want  to  try  a  sort  of  stunt  on  Strangeways.  I  'm 
going  to  bring  him  downstairs  if  he  '11  come.  I  'm  not  sure  I 
can  get  him  to  do  it;  but  he's  been  a  heap  better  lately,  and 
perhaps  I  can." 

"  Is  he  so  much  better  as  that  ?  "  she  said.     "  Will  it  be  safe  ?  " 

He  looked  as  serious  as  she  had  ever  seen  him  look  —  even  a 
trifle  more  serious. 

"  I  don't  know  how  much  better  he  is,"  was  his  answer. 
"  Sometimes  you  'd  think  he  was  almost  all  right.  And  then  —  ! 
The  doctor  says  that  if  he  could  get  over  being  afraid  of  leaving 
his  room  it  would  be  a  big  thing  for  him.  He  wants  him  to  go 
to  his  place  in  London  so  that  he  can  watch  him." 

"  Do  you  think  you  could  persuade  him  to  go  ?  " 

"  I  've  tried  my  level  best,  but  so  far  —  nothing  doing." 


T.  TEMBAEOM  399 

He  got  up  and  stood  before  the  mantel,  his  back  against 
it,  his  hands  in  his  pockets. 

"  I  've  found  out  one  thing,"  he  said.  "  He  V  used  to  houses 
like  this.  Every  now  and  again  he  lets  something  out  quite 
natural.  He  knew  that  the  furniture  in  his  room  was  Jacobean 
—  that '&  what  he  called  it  —  and  he  knew  it  was  fine  stuff.  He 
would  n't  have  known  that  if  he  'd  been  a  piker.  I  'm  going  to 
try  if  he  won't  let  out  something  else  when  he  sees  things  here  — 
if  he  '11  come." 

"You  have  such  a  wonderfully  reasoning  mind,  dear,"  said 
Miss  Alicia,  as  she  rose.  "You  would  have  made  a  great  de 
tective,  I  'm  sure." 

"  If  Ann  had  been  with  him,"  he  said,  rather  gloomily,  "  she  7d 
have  caught  on  to  a  lot  more  than  I  have.  I  don't  feel  very 
chesty  about  the  way  I  've  managed  it." 

Miss  Alicia  went  up-stairs  shortly  afterward,  and  half  an 
hour  later  Tembarom  told  the  footmen  in  the  hall  that  they 
might  go  to  bed.  The  experiment  he  was  going  to  make  de 
manded  that  the  place  should  be  cleared  of  any  disturbing  pres 
ence.  He  had  been  thinking  it  over  for  some  time  past.  He  had 
sat  in  the  private  room  of  the  great  nerve  specialist  in  London 
and  had  talked/ it  over  with  him.  He  had  talked  of  it  with  the 
duke  on  the  lawn  at  Stone  Hover.  There  had  been  a  flush  of 
color  in  the  older  man's  cheek-bones,  and  his  eyes  had  been  alight 
as  he  took  his  part  in  the  discussion.  He  had  added  the  touch  of 
his  own  personality  to  it,  as  always  happened. 

"  We  are  having  some  fine  moments,  my  good  fellow,"  he  had 
said,  rubbing  his  hands.  "  This  is  extremely  like  the  fourth  act. 
I  'd  like  to  be  sure  what  comes  next." 

"  I  'd  like  to  be  sure  myself,"  Tembarom  answered.  "  It 's.  as 
if  a  flash  of  lightning  came  sometimes,  and  then  things  clouded 
up.  And  sometimes  when  I  am  trying  something  out  he'll 
get  so  excited  that  I  dare  n't  go  on  until  I  've  talked  to  the 
doctor." 

It  was  the  excitement  he  was  dubious  about  to-night.  It 
was  not  possible  to  be  quite  certain  as  to  the  entire  safety  of  the 
plan ;  but  there  might  be  a  chance  —  even  a  big  chance  —  of 
wakening  some  cell  from  its  deadened  sleep.  Sir  Ormsby  Gallo- 


400  T.  TEMBAEOM 

way  had  talked  to  him  a  good  deal  about  brain  cells,  and  he 
had  listened  faithfully  and  learned  more  than  he  could  put  into 
scientific  English.  Gradually,  during  the  past  months,  he  had 
been  coming  upon  strangely  exciting  hints  of  curious  possibilities. 
They  had  been  mere  hints  at  first,  and  had  seemed  almost  absurd 
in  their  unbelievableness.  But  each  one  had  linked  itself  with 
another,  and  led  him  on  to  further  wondering  and  exploration. 
When  Miss  Alicia  and  Palliser  had  seen  that  he  looked  absorbed 
and  baffled,  it  had  been  because  he  had  frequently  found  himself, 
to  use  his  own  figures  of  speech,  "  mixed  up  to  beat  the  band." 
He  had  not  known  which  way  to  turn ;  but  he  had  gone  on  turn 
ing  because  he  could  not  escape  from  his  own  excited  interest, 
and  the  inevitable  emotion  roused  by  being  caught  in  the  whirl 
of  a  melodrama.  That  was  what  he  'd  dropped  into  —  a  whack 
ing  big  play.  It  had  begun  for  him  when  Palf  ord  butted  in  that 
night  and  told  him  he  was  a  lost  heir,  with  a  fortune  and  an 
estate  in  England;  and  the  curtain  had  been  jerking  up  and 
down  ever  since.  But  there  had  been  thrills  in  it,  queer  as  it  was. 
Something  doing  all  the  time,  by  gee ! 

He  sat  and  smoked  his  pipe  and  wished  Ann  were  with  him 
because  he  knew  he  was  not  as  cool  as  he  had  meant  to  be.  He 
felt  a  certain  tingling  of  excitement  in  his  body;  and  this  was 
not  the  time  to  be  excited.  He  waited  for  some  minutes  before 
he  went  up-stairs.  It  was  true  that  Strangeways  had  been  much 
better  lately.  He  had  seemed  to  find  it  easier  to  follow  con 
versation.  During  the  past  few  days,  Tembarom  had  talked  to 
him  in  a  matter-of-fact  way  about  the  house  and  its  various  be 
longings.  He  had  at  last  seemed  to  waken  to  an  interest  in  the 
picture-gallery.  Evidently  he  knew  something  of  picture-galler 
ies  and  portraits,  and  found  himself  relieved  by  his  own  clearness 
of  thought  when  he  talked  of  them. 

"I  feel  better,"  he  said,  two  or  three  times.  "Things  seem 
clearer  —  nearer." 

"  Good  business !  "  exclaimed  Tembarom.  "  I  told  you  it  'd 
be  that  way.  Let 's  hold  on  to  pictures.  It  won't  be  any  time 
before  you  '11  be  remembering  where  you  've  seen  some." 

He  had  been  secretly  rather  strung  up ;  but  he  had  been  very 
gradual  in  approaching  his  final  suggestion  that  some  night, 


T.  TEMBAROM  401 

when  everything  was  quiet,  they  might  go  and  look  at  the 
gallery  together. 

"  What  you  need  is  to  get  out  of  the  way  of  wanting  to  stay  in 
one  place,"  he  argued.  "  The  doctor  says  you  've  got  to  have 
a  change,  and  even  going  from  one  room  to  another  is  a  fine 
thing." 

Strangeways  had  looked  at  him  anxiously  for  a  few  moments, 
even  suspiciously,  hut  his  face  had  cleared  after  the  look. 
He  drew  himself  up  and  passed  his  hand  over  his  forehead. 

"  I  believe  —  perhaps  he  is  right,"  he  murmured. 

"  Sure  he 's  right !  "  said  Tembarom.  "  He 's  the  sort  of  chap 
who  ought  to  know.  He  's  been  made  into  a  baronet  for  knowing. 
Sir  Ormsby  Galloway,  by  jings!  That's  no  slouch  of  a  namei 
Oh,  he  knows,  you  bet  your  life !  " 

This  morning  when  he  had  seen  him  he  had  spoken  of  the  plan 
again.  The  visitors  had  gone  away;  the  servants  could  be  sent 
out  of  sight  and  hearing ;  they  could  go  into  the  library  and  smoke 
and  he  could  look  at  the  books.  And  then  they  could  take  a  look 
at  the  picture-gallery  if  he  was  n't  too  tired.  It  would  be  a 
change  anyhow. 

To-night,  as  he  went  up  the  huge  staircase,  Tembarom's  calm 
ness  of  being  had  not  increased.  He  was  aware  of  a  quickened 
pulse  and  of  a  slight  dampness  on  his  forehead.  The  dead 
silence  of  the  house  added  to  the  unusualness  of  things.  He 
could  not  remember  ever  having  been  so  anxious  before,  except 
on  the  occasion  when  he  had  taken  his  first  day's  "  stuff "  to 
Galton,  and  had  stood  watching  him  as  he  read  it.  His  forehead 
had  grown  damp  then.  But  he  showed  no  outward  signs  of  ex 
citement  when  he  entered  the  room  and  found  Strangeways 
standing,  perfectly  attired  in  evening  dress. 

Pearson,  setting  things  in  order  at  the  other  side  of  the  room, 
was  taking  note  of  him  furtively  over  his  shoulder.  Quite  in 
the  casual  manner  of  the  ordinary  man,  he  had  expressed  his 
intention  of  dressing  for  the  evening,  and  Pearson  had  thanked 
his  stars  for  the  fact  that  the  necessary  garments  were  at  hand. 
From  the  first,  he  had  not  infrequently  asked  for  articles  such 
as  only  the  resources  of  a  complete  masculine  wardrobe  could 


402  T.  TEMBAEOM 

supply ;  and  on  one  occasion  he  had  suddenly  wished  to  dress  for 
dinner,  and  the  lame  excuses  it  had  been  necessary  to  make  had 
disturbed  him  horribly  instead  of  pacifying  him.  To  explain 
that  his  condition  precluded  the  necessity  of  the  usual  appurte 
nances  would  have  been  out  of  the  question.  He  had  been  angry. 
What  did  Pearson  mean  ?  What  was  the  matter  ?  He  had  said 
it  over  and  over  again,  and  then  had  sunk  into  a  hopelessly  be 
wildered  mood,  and  had  sat  huddled  in  his  dressing-gown  staring 
at  the  fire.  Pearson  had  been  so  harrowed  by  the  situation  that 
it  had  been  his  own  idea  to  suggest  to  his  master  that  all  possible 
requirements  should  be  provided.  There  were  occasions  when  it 
appeared  that  the  cloud  over  him  lifted  for  a  passing  moment, 
and  a  gleam  of  light  recalled  to  him  some  familiar  usage  of  his 
past.  When  he  had  finished  dressing,  Pearson  had  been  almost 
startled  by  the  amount  of  effect  produced  by  the  straight,  correctly 
cut  lines  of  black  and  white.  The  mere  change  of  clothes  had 
suddenly  changed  the  man  himself  —  had  "  done  something 
to  him,"  Pearson  put  it.  After  his  first  glance  at  the 
mirror  he  had  straightened  himself,  as  if  recognizing  the 
fault  of  his  own  carriage.  When  he  crossed  the  room  it  was  with 
the  action  of  a  man  who  has  been  trained  to  move  well.  The 
good  looks,  which  had  been  almost  hidden  behind  a  veil  of  un 
certainty  of  expression  and  strained  fearfulness,  became  obvious. 
He  was  tall,  and  his  lean  limbs  were  splendidly  hung  together. 
His  head  was  perfectly  set,  and  the  bearing  of  his  square  shoulders 
was  a  soldierly  thing.  It  was  an  extraordinarily  handsome  man 
Tembarom  and  Pearson  found  themselves  gazing  at.  Each 
glanced  involuntarily  at  the  other. 

"  Now  that 's  first-rate  !  I  'm  glad  you  feel  like  coming/'  Tem 
barom  plunged  in.  He  did  n't  intend  to  give  him  too  much  time 
to  think. 

"  Thank  you.  It  will  be  a  change,  as  you  said,"  Strangeways 
answered.  "  One  needs  change." 

His  deep  eyes  looked  somewhat  deeper  than  usual,  but  his  man 
ner  was  that  of  any  well-bred  man  doing  an  accustomed  thing. 
If  he  had  been  an  ordinary  guest  in  the  house,  and  his  host  had 
dropped  into  his  room,  he  would  have  comported  himself  in 
exactly  the  same  way. 


T.  TEMBAROM  403 

They  went  together  down  the  corridor  as  if  they  had  passed 
down  it  together  a  dozen  times  before.  On  the  stairway  Strange- 
ways  looked  at  the  tapestries  with  the  interest  of  a  familiarized 
intelligence. 

"  It  is  a  beautiful  old  place,"  he  said,  as  they  crossed  the  hall. 
"  That  armor  was  worn  by  a  crusader."  He  hesitated  a  moment 
when  they  entered  the  library,  but  it  was  only  for  a  moment. 
He  went  to  the  hearth  and  took  the  chair  his  host  offered  him, 
and,  lighting  a  cigar,  sat  smoking  it.  If  T.  Tembarom  had 
chanced  to  be  a  man  of  an  analytical  or  metaphysical  order  of 
intellect  he  would  have  found,  during  the  past  month,  many 
things  to  lead  him  far  in  mental  argument  concerning  the 
weird  wonder  of  the  human  mind  —  of  its  power  where  its 
possessor,  the  body,  is  concerned,  its  sometime  closeness  to  the 
surface  of  sentient  being,  its  sometime  remoteness.  He  would 
have  known  —  awed,  marveling  at  the  blackness  of  the  pit  into 
which  it  can  descend  —  the  unknown  shades  that  may  enfold  it 
and  imprison  its  gropings.  The  old  Duke  of  Stone  had  sat  and 
pondered  many  an  hour  over  stories  his  favorite  companion  had 
related  to  him.  What  curious  and  subtle  processes  had  the  queer 
fellow  not  been  watching  in  the  closely  guarded  quiet  of  the 
room  where  the  stranger  had  spent  his  days;  the  strange  thing 
cowering  in  its  darkness ;  the  ray  of  light  piercing  the  cloud  one 
day  and  seeming  lost  again  the  next ;  the  struggles  the  imprisoned 
thing  made  to  come  forth  —  to  cry  out  that  it  was  but  immured, 
not  wholly  conquered,  and  that  some  hour  would  arrive  when 
it  would  fight  its  way  through  at  last.  Tembarom  had  not 
entered  into  psychological  research.  He  had  been  entirely  un- 
complex  in  his  attitude,  sitting  down  before  his  problem  as 
a  besieger  might  have  sat  down  before  a  castle.  The  duke 
had  sometimes  wondered  whether  it  was  not  a  good  enough 
thing  that  he  had  been  so  simple  about  it,  merely  continuing  to 
believe  the  best  with  an  unswerving  obstinacy  and  lending  a  hand 
when  he  could.  A  never  flagging  sympathy  had  kept  him  singu 
larly  alive  to  every  chance,  and  now  and  then  he  had  illumina 
tions  which  would  have  done  credit  to  a  cleverer  man,  and  which 
the  duke  had  rubbed  his  hands  over  in  half-amused,  half-touched 
elation.  How  he  had  kept  his  head  level  and  held  to  his  purpose ! 


404  T.   TEMBAEOM 

T.  Tembarom  talked  but  little  as  he  sat  in  his  big  chair  and 
smoked.  Best  let  him  alone  and  give  him  time  to  get  used  to  the 
newness,  he  thought.  Nothing  must  happen  that  could  give 
him  a  jolt.  Let  things  sort  of  sink  into  him,  and  perhaps  they  'd 
set  him  to  thinking  and  lead  him  somewhere.  Strangeways 
himself  evidently  did  not  want  talk.  He  never  wanted  it  unless 
he  was  excited.  He  was  not  excited  now,  and  had  settled  down 
as  if  he  was  comfortable.  Having  finished  one  cigar  he  took 
another,  and  began  to  smoke  it  much  more  slowly  than  he  had 
smoked  his  first.  The  slowness  began  to  arrest  Tembarom's  at 
tention.  This  was  the  smoking  of  a  man  who  was  either  grow 
ing  sleepy  or  sinking  into  deep  thought,  becoming  oblivious  to 
what  he  was  doing.  Sometimes  he  held  the  cigar  absently  be 
tween  his  strong,  fine  fingers,  seeming  to  forget  it.  Tembarom 
watched  him  do  this  until  he  saw  it  go  out,  and  its  white  ash 
drop  on  the  rug  at  his  feet.  He  did  not  notice  it,  but  sat  sink 
ing  deeper  and  deeper  into  his  own  being,  growing  more  remote. 
What  was  going  on  under  his  absorbed  stillness?  Tembarom 
would  not  have  moved  or  spoken  "  for  a  block  of  Fifth  Avenue," 
he  said  internally.  The  dark  eyes  seemed  to  become  darker  until 
there  was  only  a  pin's  point  of  light  to  be  seen  in  their  pupils. 
It  was  as  if  he  were  looking  at  something  at  a  distance  —  at  a 
strangely  long  distance.  Twice  he  turned  his  head  and  appeared 
to  look  slowly  round  the  room,  but  not  as  normal  people  look  — 
as  if  it  also  was  at  the  strange,  long  distance  from  him,  and  he 
were  somewhere  outside  its  walls.  It  was  an  uncanny  thing  to 
be  a  spectator  to. 

"  How  dead  still  the  room  is ! "  Tembarom  found  himself 
thinking. 

It  was  "  dead  still."  And  it  was  a  queer  deal  sitting,  not  dar 
ing  to  move  —  just  watching.  Something  was  bound  to  happen, 
sure!  What  was  it  going  to  be? 

Strangeways'  cigar  dropped  from  his  fingers  and  appeared 
to  rouse  him.  He  looked  puzzled  for  a  moment,  and  then  stooped 
quite  naturally  to  pick  it  up. 

"  I  forgot  it  altogether.     It 's  gone  out,"  he  remarked. 

"  Have  another,"  suggested  Tembarom,  moving  the  box  nearer 
to  him. 


T.  TEMBAROM  405 

"  No,  thank  you."  He  rose  and  crossed  the  room  to  the  wall  of 
book-shelves.  And  Tembarom's  eye  was  caught  again  by  the 
fineness  of  movement  and  line  the  evening  clothes  made  manifest. 
"What  a  swell  he  looked  when  he  moved  about  like  that! 
What  a  swell,  by  jings ! " 

He  looked  along  the  line  of  shelves  and  presently  took  a  book 
down  and  opened  it.  He  turned  over  its  leaves  until  something 
arrested  his  attention,  and  then  he  fell  to  reading.  He  read 
several  minutes,  while  Tembarom  watched  him.  The  silence  was 
broken  by  his  laughing  a  little. 

"  Listen  to  this,"  he  said,  and  began  to  read  something  in  a 
language  totally  unknown  to  his  hearer.  "  A  man  who  writes  that 
sort  of  thing  about  a  woman  is  an  old  bounder,  whether  he 's  a 
poet  or  not.  There 's  a  small,  biting  spitefulness  about  it  that 's 
cattish." 

"  Who  did  it  ?  "  Tembarom  inquired  softly.  It  might  be  a 
good  idea  to  lead  him  on. 

"  Horace.  In  spite  of  his  genius,  he  sometimes  makes  you 
feel  he  was  rather  a  blackguard." 

"  Horace ! "  For  the  moment  T.  Tembarom  forgot  himself. 
"  I  always  heard  he  was  a  sort  of  Y.  M.  C.  A.  old  guy  —  old 
Horace  Greeley.  The  Tribune  was  no  yellow  journal  when  he 
had  it." 

He  was  sorry  he  had  spoken  the  next  moment.  Strangeways 
looked  puzzled. 

"  The  Tribune"  he  hesitated.     " The  Roman  Tribune ? " 

"  No,  New  York.  He  started  it  —  old  Horace  did.  But  per 
haps  we're  not  talking  of  the  same  man." 

Strangeways  hesitated  again. 

"  No,  I  think  we  're  not,"  he  answered  politely. 

"  I  've  made  a  break,"  thought  Tembarom.  "  I  ought  to  have 
kept  my  mouth  shut.  I  must  try  to  switch  him  back." 

Strangeways  was  looking  down  at  the  back  of  the  book  he  held 
in  his  hand. 

"  This  one  was  the  Latin  poet,  Quintus  Horatius  Flaccus,  65 
B.  C.  You  know  him,"  he  said. 

"  Oh,  that  one ! "  exclaimed  Tembarom,  as  if  with  an  air  of 
immense  relief.  "  What  a  fool  I  was  to  forget !  I  'm  glad 


406  T.  TEMBAROM 

it 's  him.  Will  you  go  on  reading  and  let  me  hear  some  more  ? 
He  's  a  winner  from  Winnersville  —  that  Horace  is." 

Perhaps  it  was  a  sort  of  miracle,  accomplished  by  his  great 
desire  to  help  the  right  thing  to  happen,  to  stave  off  any  shadow 
of  the  wrong  thing.  Whatsoever  the  reason,  Strangeways  waited 
only  a  moment  before  turning  to  his  book  again.  It  seemed 
to  be  a  link  in  some  chain  slowly  forming  itself  to  drag  him 
back  from  his  wanderings.  And  T.  Tembarom,  lightly  sweating 
as  a  frightened  horse  will,  sat  smoking  another  pipe  and  listening 
intently  to  "  Satires  "  and  "  Lampoons,"  read  aloud  in  the  Latin 
of  65  B.  C. 

"  By  gee ! "  he  said  faithfully,  at  intervals,  when  he  saw  on 
the  reader's  face  that  the  moment  was  ripe.  "  He  knew  it  all  — 
old  Horace  —  did  n't  he  ?  " 

He  had  steered  his  charge  back.  Things  were  coming  along 
the  line  to  him.  He'd  learned  Latin  at  one  of  these  big  Eng 
lish  schools.  Boys  always  learned  Latin,  the  duke  had  told  him. 
They  just  had  to.  Most  of  them  hated  it  like  thunder,  and 
they  used  to  be  caned  when  they  did  n't  recite  it  right.  Perhaps 
if  he  went  on  he'd  begin  to  remember  the  school.  A  queer 
part  of  it  was  that  he  did  not  seem  to  notice  that  he  was  not 
reading  his  own  language. 

He  did  not,  in  fact,  seem  to  remember  anything  in  particular, 
but  went  on  quite  naturally  for  some  minutes.  He  had  replaced 
Horace  on  the  shelf  and  was  on  the  point  of  taking  down  another 
volume  when  he  paused,  as  if  recalling  something  else. 

"  Were  n't  we  going  to  see  the  picture-gallery  ?  "  he  inquired. 
"  Is  n't  it  getting  late  ?  I  should  like  to  see  the  portraits." 

"  No  hurry,"  answered  T.  Tembarom.  "  I  was  just  waiting 
till  you  were  ready.  But  we  '11  go  right  away,  if  you  like." 

They  went  without  further  ceremony.  As  they  walked  through 
the  hall  and  down  the  corridors  side  by  side,  an  imaginative 
person  might  have  felt  that  perhaps  the  eyes  of  an  ancient 
darkling  portrait  or  so  looked  down  at  the  pair  curiously:  the 
long,  loosely  built  New  Yorker  rather  slouching  along  by  the 
soldierly,  almost  romantic  figure  which,  in  a  measure,  suggested 
that  others  not  unlike  it  might  have  trod  the  same  oaken  floor, 
wearing  ruff  and  doublet,  or  lace  jabot  and  sword.  There  was 


T.  TEMBAROM  407 

a  far  cry  between  the  two,  but  they  walked  closely  in  friendly 
union.  When  they  entered  the  picture-gallery  Strangeways 
paused  a  moment  again,  and  stood  peering  down  its  length. 

"  It  is  very  dimly  lighted.     How  can  we  see  ?  "  he  said. 

"  I  told  Pearson  to  leave  it  dim,"  Tembarom  answered.  "  I 
wanted  it  just  that  way  at  first." 

He  tried  —  and  succeeded  tolerably  well  —  to  say  it  casually, 
as  he  led  the  way  ahead  of  them.  He  and  the  duke  had  not 
talked  the  scheme  over  for  nothing.  As  his  grace  had  said,  they 
had  "  worked  the  thing  up."  As  they  moved  down  the  gallery, 
the  men  and  women  in  their  frames  looked  like  ghosts  staring 
out  to  see  what  was  about  to  happen. 

"We'll  turn  up  the  lights  after  a  while,"  T.  Tembarom  ex 
plained,  still  casually.  "  There 's  a  picture  here  I  think  a  good 
deal  of.  I  've  stood  and  looked  at  it  pretty  often.  It  reminded 
me  of  some  one  the  first  day  I  set  eyes  on  it ;  but  it  was  quite  a 
time  before  I  made  up  my  mind  who  it  was.  It  used  to  drive 
me  half  dotty  trying  to  think  it  out." 

"  Which  one  was  it  ?  "  asked  Strangeways. 

"  We  're  coming  to  it.  I  want  to  see  if  it  reminds  you  of  any 
one.  And  I  want  you  to  see  it  sudden."  "  It 's  got  to  be  sud 
den,"  he  had  said  to  the  duke.  "  If  it 's  going  to  pan  out,  I 
believe  it 's  got  to  be  sudden."  "  That 's  why  I  had  the  rest  of 
'em  left  dim.  I  told  Pearson  to  leave  a  lamp  I  could  turn  up 
quick,"  he  said  to  Strangeways. 

The  lamp  was  on  a  table  near  by  and  was  shaded  by  a  screen. 
He  took  it  from  the  shadow  and  lifted  it  suddenly,  so  that  its 
full  gleam  fell  upon  the  portrait  of  the  handsome  youth  with 
the  lace  collar  and  the  dark,  drooping  eyes.  It  was  done  in  a 
second,  with  a  dramatically  unexpected  swiftness.  His  heart 
jumped  up  and  down. 

"  Who 's  that  ? "  he  demanded,  with  abruptness  so  sharp- 
pitched  that  the  gallery  echoed  with  the  sound.  "  Who  's  that  ?  " 

He  heard  a  hard,  quick  gasp,  a  sound  which  was  momentarily 
a  little  horrible,  as  if  the  man's  soul  was  being  jerked  out  of 
his  body's  depths. 

"  Who  is  he  ?  "  he  cried  again.     "  Tell  me." 

After  the  gasp,  Strangeways  stood  still  and  stared.     His  eyes 


408  T.  TEMBAROM 

were  glued  to  the  canvas,  drops  of  sweat  came  out  on  his  fore 
head,  and  he  was  shuddering.  He  began  to  back  away  with  a 
look  of  gruesome  struggle.  He  backed  and  backed,  and  stared 
and  stared.  The  gasp  came  twice  again,  and  then  his  voice 
seemed  to  tear  itself  loose  from  some  power  that  was  holding  it 
back. 

"  Th  — at !  "  he  cried.     "  It  is  —  it  —  is  Miles  Hugo !  " 

The  last  words  were  almost  a  shout,  and  he  shook  as  if  he  would 
have  fallen.  But  T.  Tembarom  put  his  hand  on  his  shoulder 
and  held  him,  breathing  fast  himself.  Gee !  if  it  was  n't  like 
a  thing  in  a  play ! 

"  Page  at  the  court  of  Charles  the  Second,"  he  rattled  off. 
"  Died  of  smallpox  when  he  was  nineteen.  Miles  Hugo !  Miles 
Hugo !  You  hold  on  to  that  for  all  your  worth.  And  hold  on 
to  me.  I  '11  keep  you  steady.  Say  it  again." 

"  Miles  Hugo."  The  poor  majestic-looking  fellow  almost 
sobbed  it.  "  Where  am  I  ?  What  is  the  name  of  this  place  ?  " 

"  It 's  Temple  Barholm  in  the  county  of  Lancashire,  England. 
Hold  on  to  that,  too  —  like  thunder !  " 

Strangeways  held  the  young  man's  arm  with  hands  that 
clutched.  He  dragged  at  him.  His  nightmare  held  him  yet; 
Tembarom  saw  it,  but  flashes  of  light  were  blinding  him. 

"Who" — he  pleaded  in  a  shaking  and  hollow  whisper  — 
"  are  you  ?  " 

Here  was  a  stumper!  By  jings!  By  jings!  And  not  a 
minute  to  think  it  out.  But  the  answer  came  all  right  —  all 
right ! 

"  My  name  's  Tembarom.  T.  Tembarom."  And  he  grinned 
his  splendid  grin  from  sheer  sense  of  relief.  "  I  'm  a  New 
Yorker  —  Brooklyn.  I  was  just  forked  in  here  anyhow.  Don't 
you  waste  time  thinking  over  me.  You  sit  down  here  and  do 
your  durndest  with  Miles  Hugo." 


Th— at ! "  he  cried.     "  It  is— it— is  Miles  Hugo  ! " 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 


EMBAEOM  did  not  look  as  though  he  had 
slept  particularly  well,  Miss  Alicia  thought, 
when  they  met  the  next  morning ;  but  when 
she  asked  him  whether  he  had  been  disap 
pointed  in  his  last  night's  experiment,  he 
answered  that  he  had  not.  The  experiment 
had  come  out  all  right,  but  Strangeways 
had  been  a  good  deal  worked  up,  and  had 
not  been  able  to  sleep  until  daylight.  Sir 
Ormsby  Galloway  was  to  arrive  in  the  after- 
'•"'"  noon,  and  he'd  probably  give  him  some 

thing  quieting.  Had  the  coming  down 
stairs  seemed  to  help  him  to  recall  anything?  Miss  Alicia  nat 
urally  inquired.  Tembarom  thought  it  had.  He  drove  to  Stone 
Hover  and  spent  the  morning  with  the  duke;  he  even  lunched 
with  him.  He  returned  in  time  to  receive  Sir  Ormsby  Galloway, 
however,  and  until  that  great  personage  left,  they  were  together 
in  Mr.  Strangeways'  rooms. 

"  I  guess  I  shall  get  him  up  to  London  to  the  place  where  Sir 
Ormsby  wants  him/'  he  said  rather  nervously,  after  dinner. 
f  I  'm  not  going  to  miss  any  chances.  If  he  '11  go,  I  can  get  him 
away  quietly  some  time  when  I  can  fix  it  so  there 's  no  one  about 
to  worry  him." 

She  felt  that  he  had  no  inclination  to  go  much  into  detail.  He 
had  never  had  the  habit  of  entering  into  the  details  connected 
with  his  strange  charge.  She  believed  it  was  because  he  felt  the 
subject  too  abnormal  not  to  seem  a  little  awesome  to  her  sympa 
thetic  timidity.  She  did  not  ask  questions  because  she  was  afraid 
she  could  not  ask  them  intelligently.  In  fact,  the  knowledge 
that  this  unknown  man  was  living  through  his  struggle  with  his 
lost  past  in  the  remote  rooms  of  the  west  wing,  almost  as  though 

409 


410  T.  TEMBAROM 

he  were  a  secret  prisoner,  did  seem  a  little  awesome  when  one 
awoke  in  the  middle  of  the  dark  night  and  thought  of  it. 

During  the  passage  of  the  next  few  weeks,  Tembarom  went  up 
to  London  several  times.  Once  he  seemed  called  there  suddenly, 
as  it  was  only  during  dinner  that  he  told  her  he  was  going  to 
take  a  late  train,  and  should  leave  the  house  after  she  had  gone 
to  bed.  She  felt  as  though  something  important  must  have 
happened,  and  hoped  it  was  nothing  disturbing. 

When  he  had  said  that  Captain  Palliser  would  return  to  visit 
them,  her  private  impression,  despite  his  laugh,  had  been  that  it 
must  surely  be  some  time  before  this  would  occur.  But  a  little 
more  than  three  weeks  later  he  appeared,  preceded  only  half  an 
hour  by  a  telegram  asking  whether  he  might  not  spend  a  night 
with  them  on  his  way  farther  north.  He  could  not  at  all  under 
stand  why  the  telegram,  which  he  said  he  had  sent  the  day 
before,  had  been  delayed. 

A  certain  fatigued  haggardness  in  his  countenance  caused  Miss 
Alicia  to  ask  whether  he  had  been  ill,  and  he  admitted  that  he 
had  at  least  not  been  well,  as  a  result  of  long  and  too  hurried 
journeys,  and  the  strenuousness  of  extended  and  profoundly  seri 
ous  interviews  with  his  capitalist  and  magnates. 

"No  man  can  engineer  gigantic  schemes  to  success  without 
feeling  the  reaction  when  his  load  drops  from  his  shoulders,"  he 
remarked. 

"  You  've  carried  it  quite  through  ?  "  inquired  Tembarom. 

"We  have  set  on  foot  one  of  the  largest,  most  substantially 
capitalized  companies  in  the  European  business  world,"  Palliser 
replied,  with  the  composure  which  is  almost  indifference. 

"  Good !  "  said  Tembarom  cheerfully. 

He  watched  his  guest  a  good  deal  during  the  day.  He  was  a 
bad  color  for  a  man  who  had  just  steered  clear  of  all  shoals  and 
reached  the  highest  point  of  success.  He  had  a  haggard  eye 
as  well  as  a  haggard  face.  It  was  a  terrified  eye  when  its  desper 
ate  determination  to  hide  its  terrors  dropped  from  it  for  an  in 
stant,  as  a  veil  might  drop.  A  certain  restlessness  was  manifest 
in  him,  and  he  talked  more  than  usual.  He  was  going  to  make 
a  visit  in  Northumberland  to  an  elderly  lady  of  great  possessions. 
It  was  to  be  vaguely  gathered  that  she  was  somewhat  interested 


T.  TEMBAEOM  411 

in  the  great  company  —  the  Cedric.  She  was  a  remarkable  old 
person  who  found  a  certain  agreeable  excitement  in  dabbling  in 
stocks.  She  was  rich  enough  to  be  in  a  position  to  regard  it  as 
a  sort  of  game,  and  he  had  been  able  on  several  occasions  to 
afford  her  entertainment.  He  would  remain-  a  few  days,  and 
spend  his  time  chiefly  in  telling  her  the  details  of  the  great 
scheme  and  the  manner  in  which  they  were  to  be  developed. 

"  If  she  can  play  with  things  that  way,  she  '11  be  sure  to  want 
stock  in  it,"  Tembarom  remarked. 

"  If  she  does,  she  must  make  up  her  mind  quickly/'  Palliser 
smiled,  "or  she  will  not  be  able  to  get  it.  It  is  not  easy  to 
lay  one's  hands  on  even  now." 

Tembarom  thought  of  certain  speculators  of  entirely  insignifi 
cant  standing  of  whom  he  had  chanced  to  see  and  hear  anecdotes 
in  New  York.  Most  of  them  were  youths  of  obscure  origin  who 
sold  newspapers  or  blacked  boots,  or  "  swapped "  articles  the 
value  of  which  lay  in  the  desire  they  could  excite  in  other  persons 
to  possess  them.  A  popular  method  known  as  "  bluff "  was 
their  most  trusted  weapon,  and  even  at  twelve  and  fifteen  years  of 
age  Tembarom  had  always  regarded  it  as  singularly  obvious.  He 
always  detested  "bluff,"  whatsoever  its  disguise,  and  was  rather 
mystified  by  its  ingenious  faith  in  itself. 

"  He 's  got  badly  stung,"  was  his  internal  comment  as  he 
sucked  at  his  pipe  and  smiled  urbanely  at  Palliser  across  the  room 
as  they  sat  together.  "  He 's  come  here  with  some  sort  of  deal 
on  that  he  knows  he  couldn't  work  with  any  one  but  just  such 
a  fool  as  he  thinks  I  am.  I  guess,"  he  added  in  composed  re 
flectiveness,  "  I  don't  really  know  how  big  a  fool  I  do  look." 

Whatsoever  the  deal  was,  he  would  be  likely  to  let  it  be  known 
in  time. 

"  He  '11  get  it  off  his  chest  if  he 's  going  away  to-morrow,"  de 
cided  Tembarom.  "  If  there  's  anything  he  's  found  out,  he  '11 
use  it.  If  it  does  n't  pan  out  as  he  thinks  it  will  he  '11  just  float 
away  to  his  old  lady." 

He  gave  Palliser  every  chance,  talking  to  him  and  encourag 
ing  him  to  talk,  even  asking  him  to  let  him  look  over  the  pros 
pectus  of  the  new  company  and  explain  details  to  him,  as  he  was 
going  to  explain  them  to  the  old  lady  in  Northumberland.  He 


412  T.  TEMBAEOM 

opened  up  avenues;  but  for  a  time  Palliser  made  no  attempt 
to  stroll  down  them.  His  walk  would  be  a  stroll,  Tembarom 
knew,  being  familiar  with  his  methods.  His  aspect  would  be 
that  of  a  man  but  little  concerned.  He  would  be  capable  of  a 
slightly  rude  coldness  if  he  felt  that  concern  on  his  part  was  in 
any  degree  counted  as  a  factor.  Tembarom  was  aware,  among 
other  things,  that  innocent  persons  would  feel  that  it  was  incum 
bent  upon  them  to  be  very  careful  in  their  treatment  of  him. 
He  seemed  to  be  thinking  things  over  before  he  decided  upon  the 
psychological  moment  at  which  he  would  begin,  if  he  began. 
When  a  man  had  a  good  deal  to  lose  or  to  win,  Tembarom  realized 
that  he  would  be  likely  to  hold  back  until  he  felt  something  like 
solid  ground  under  him. 

After  Miss  Alicia  had  left  them  for  the  night,  perhaps  he  felt, 
as  a  result  of  thinking  the  matter  over,  that  he  had  reached  a 
foothold  of  a  firmness  at  least  somewhat  to  be  depended 
upon. 

"  What  a  change  you  have  made  in  that  poor  woman's  life ! " 
he  said,  walking  to  the  side-table  and  helping  himself  to  a  brandy 
and  soda.  "  What  a  change !  " 

"  It  struck  me  that  a  change  was  needed  just  about  the  time  I 
dropped  in/'  answered  his  host. 

"  All  the  same,"  suggested  Palliser,  tolerantly,  "  you  were 
immensely  generous.  She  wasn't  entitled  to  expect  it,  you 
know." 

"  She  did  n't  expect  anything,  not  a  darned  thing,"  said 
Tembarom.  "  That  was  what  hit  me." 

Palliser  smiled  a  cold,  amiable  smile.  His  slim,  neatly  fitted 
person  looked  a  little  shrunken  and  less  straight  than  was  its 
habit,  and  its  slackness  suggested  itself  as  being  part  of  the 
harry  and  fatigue  which  made  his  face  and  eyes  haggard  under 
his  pale,  smooth  hair. 

"  Do  you  purpose  to  provide  for  the  future  of  all  your  indigent 
relatives  even  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation,  my  dear  chap  ?  " 
he  inquired. 

"  I  won't  refuse  till  I  'm  asked,  anyhow,"  was  the  answer. 

"  Asked !  "  Palliser  repeated.  "  I  'm  one  of  them,  you  know, 
and  Lady  Mallowe  is  another.  There  are  lots  of  us,  when  we 


T.  TEMBAROM  413 

come  out  of  our  holes.     If  it  's  only  a  matter  of  asking,  we  might 
all  descend  on  you." 

Tembarom,  smiling,  wondered  whether  they  had  n't  descended 
already,  and  whether  the  descent  had  so  far  been  all  that  they  had 
anticipated. 

Palliser  strolled  down  his  opened  avenue  with  an  incidental  air 
which  was  entirely  creditable  to  his  training  of  himself.  T. 
Tembarom  acknowledged  that  much. 

"  You  are  too  generous,"  said  Palliser.  "  You  are  the  sort  of 
fellow  who  will  always  need  all  he  has,  and  more.  The  way 
you  go  among  the  villagers !  You  think  you  merely  slouch  about 
and  keep  it  quiet,  but  you  don't.  You  've  set  an  example  no  other 
landowner  can  expect  to  live  up  to,  or  intends  to.  It's  too 
lavish.  It's  pernicious,  dear  chap.  I  have  heard  all  about 
the  cottage  you  are  doing  over  for  Pearson  and  his  bride.  You 
had  better  invest  in  the  Cedric." 

Tembarom  wanted  him  to  go  on,  if  there  was  anything  in  it. 
He  made  his  face  look  as  he  knew  Palliser  hoped  it  would  look 
when  the  psychological  moment  came.  Its  expression  was  not  a 
deterrent ;  in  fact,  it  had  a  character  not  unlikely  to  lead  an  eager 
man,  or  one  who  was  not  as  wholly  experienced  as  he  believed 
he  was,  to  rush  down  a  steep  hill  into  the  sea,  after  the  manner 
of  the  swine  in  the  parable. 

Heaven  knew  Palliser  did  not  mean  to  rush,  and  was  not 
aware  when  the  rush  began;  but  he  had  reason  to  be  so  much 
more  eager  than  he  professed  to  be  that  momentarily  he  swerved, 
despite  himself,  and  ceased  to  be  casual. 

"  It  is  an  enormous  opportunity,"  he  said  — "  timber  lands  in 
Mexico,  you  know.  If  you  had  spent  your  life  in  England,  you 
would  realize  that  timber  has  become  a  desperate  necessity,  and 
that  the  difficulties  which  exist  in  the  way  of  supplying  the  de 
mand  are  almost  insuperable.  These  forests  are  virtually  bound 
less,  and  the  company  which  controls  them — " 

"  That 's  a  good  spiel !  "  broke  in  Tembarom. 

It  sounded  like  the  crudely  artless  interruption  of  a  person 
whose  perceptions  left  much  to  be  desired.  T.  Tembarom  knew 
what  it  sounded  like.  If  Palliser  lost  his  temper,  he  would  get 
over  the  ground  faster,  and  he  wanted  him  to  get  over  the  ground. 


414  T.  TEMBAEOM 

"  I  'm  afraid  I  don't  understand/'  he  replied  rather  stiffly. 
"There  was  a  fellow  I  knew  in  New  York  who  used  to  sell 
type-writers,  and  he  had  a  thing  to  say  he  used  to  reel  off  when 
any  one  looked  like  a  customer.     He  used  to  call  it  his  '  spiel.'  " 
Palliser's  quick  glance  at  him  asked  questions,  and  his  stiffness 
did  not  relax  itself. 

"  Is  this  New  York  chaff  ?  "  he  inquired  coldly. 
"  No/'  Tembarom  said.     "  You  're  not  doing  it  for  ten  per. 
He  was/' 

"  No,  not  exactly/'  said  Palliser.  "  Neither  would  you  be  do 
ing  it  for  ten  per  if  you  went  into  it."  His  voice  changed.  He 
became  slightly  haughty.  "  Perhaps  it  was  a  mistake  on  my 
part  to  think  you  might  care  to  connect  yourself  with  it.  You 
have  not,  of  course,  been  in  the  position  to  comprehend  such 
matters/' 

"If  I  was  what  I  look  like,  that'd  stir  me  up  and  make 
me  feel  bad,"  thought  T.  Tembarom,  with  cheerful  comprehen 
sion  of  this,  at  least.  "  I  'd  have  to  rush  in  and  try  to  prove  to 
him  that  I  was  as  accustomed  to  big  business  as  he  is,  and  that 
it  didn't  rattle  me.  The  way  to  do  it  that  would  come  most 
natural  would  be  to  show  I  was  ready  to  buy  as  big  a  block  of 
stock  as  any  other  fellow." 

But  the  expression  of  his  face  did  not  change.     He  only  gave 
a  half-awkward  sort  of  laugh. 
"  I  guess  I  can  learn,"  he  said. 

Palliser  felt  the  foothold  become  firmer.  The  bounder  was 
interested,  but,  after  a  bounder's  fashion,  was  either  nervous  or 
imagined  that  a  show  of  hesitation  looked  shrewd.  The  slight 
hit  made  at  his  inexperience  in  investment  had  irritated  him  and 
made  him  feel  less  cock-sure  of  himself.  A  slightly  offended 
manner  might  be  the  best  weapon  to  rely  upon. 

"  I  thought  you  might  care  to  have  the  thing  made  clear  to 
you,"  he  continued  indifferently.  "I  meant  to  explain.  You 
may  take  the  chance  or  leave  it,  as  you  like,  of  course.  That 
is  nothing  to  me  at  this  stage  of  the  game.  But,  after  all,  we 
are  as  I  said,  relatives  of  a  sort,  and  it  is  a  gigantic  opportunity. 
Suppose  we  change  the  subject.  Is  that  the  Sunday  Earth  I  see 
by  you  on  the  table  ?  "  He  leaned  forward  to  take  the  paper,  as 


T.   TEMBAEOM  415 

though  the  subject  really  were  dropped;  but,  after  a  seemingly 
nervous  suck  or  two  at  his  pipe,  Tembarom  came  to  his  assistance. 
It  wouldn't  do  to  let  him  quiet  down  too  much. 

"  I  'm  no  Van  Morganbilt,"  he  said  hesitatingly,  "  but  I  can  see 
that  it's  a  big  opportunity  —  for  some  one  else.  Let's  have 
a  look  over  the  prospectus  again." 

Palliser  paused  in  his  unconcerned  opening  of  the  copy  of  the 
Sunday  Earth.  His  manner  somewhat  disgustedly  implied  in 
decision  as  to  whether  it  was  worth  while  to  allow  oneself  to 
be  dropped  and  taken  up  by  turns. 

"  Do  you  really  mean  that  ?  "  he  asked  with  a  certain  chill  of 
voice. 

"Yes.  I  don't  mind  trying  to  catch  on  to  what's  doing  in 
any  big  scheme." 

Palliser  did  not  lay  aside  his  suggestion  of  cold  semi-reluctance 
more  readily  than  any  man  who  knew  his  business  would  have 
laid  it  aside.  His  manner  at  the  outset  was  quite  perfect.  His 
sole  ineptitude  lay  in  his  feeling  a  too  great  confidence  in  the 
exact  quality  of  his  companion's  type,  as  he  summed  it  up.  He 
did  not  calculate  on  the  variations  from  all  type  sometimes 
provided  by  circumstances. 

He  produced  his  papers  without  too  obvious  eagerness.  He 
spread  them  upon  the  table,  and  coolly  examined  them  himself 
before  beginning  his  explanation.  There  was  more  to  explain  to 
a  foreigner  and  one  unused  to  investment  than  there  would  be 
to  a  man  who  was  an  Englishman  and  familiar  with  the  methods 
of  large  companies,  he  said.  He  went  into  technicalities,  so  to 
speak,  and  used  rapidly  and  lightly  some  imposing  words  and 
phrases,  to  which  T.  Tembarom  listened  attentively,  but  without 
any  special  air  of  illumination.  He  dealt  with  statistics  and  the 
resulting  probabilities.  He  made  apparent  the  existing  condition 
of  England's  inability  to  supply  an  enormous  and  unceasing 
demand  for  timber.  He  had  acquired  divers  excellent  methods 
of  stating  his  case  to  the  party  of  the  second  part. 

"  He  made  me  feel  as  if  a  fellow  had  better  hold  on  to  a  box 
of  matches  like  grim  death,  and  that  the  time  was  n't  out  of  sight 
when  you  'd  have  to  give  fifty-seven  dollars  and  a  half  for  a 
toothpick,"  Tembarom  afterwards  said  to  the  duke. 


416  T.  TEMBAEOM 

What  Tembarom  was  thinking  as  he  listened  to  him  was 
that  he  was  not  getting  over  the  ground  with  much  rapidity, 
and  that  it  was  time  something  was  doing.  He  had  not  watched 
him  for  weeks  without  learning  divers  of  his  idiosyncrasies. 

"  If  he  thought  I  wanted  to  know  what  he  thinks  I  'd  a  heap 
rather  not  know,  he'd  never  tell  me/'  he  speculated.  "If 
he  gets  a  bit  hot  in  the  collar,  he  may  let  it  out.  Thing  is  to  stir 
him  up.  He  's  lost  his  nerve  a  bit,  and  he  '11  get  mad  pretty 
easy." 

He  went  on  smoking  and  listening,  and  asking  an  unen 
lightened  question  now  and  then,  in  a  manner  which  was  as  far 
from  being  a  deterrent  as  the  largely  unilluminated  expression  of 
his  face  was. 

"  Of  course  money  is  wanted,"  Palliser  said  at  length. 
"  Money  is  always  wanted,  and  as  much  when  a  scheme  is  a 
success  as  when  it  is  n't.  Good  names,  with  a  certain  character, 
are  wanted.  The  fact  of  your  inheritance  is  known  everywhere ; 
and  the  fact  that  you  are  an  American  is  a  sort  of  guaranty  of 
shrewdness." 

"Is  it?"  said  T.  Tembarom.  "Well,"  he  added  slowly,  "I 
guess  Americans  are  pretty  good  business  men." 

Palliser  thought  that  this  was  evolving  upon  perfectly  natural 
lines,  as  he  had  anticipated  it  would.  The  fellow  was  flattered 
and  pleased.  You  could  always  reach  an  American  by  implying 
that  he  was  one  of  those  who  specially  illustrate  enviable  national 
characteristics. 

He  went  on  in  smooth,  casual  laudation: 

"No  American  takes  hold  of  a  scheme  of  this  sort  until  he 
knows  jolly  well  what  he's  going  to  get  out  of  it.  You  were 
shrewd  enough,"  he  added  significantly,  "about  Hutchinson's 
affair.  You  '  got  in  on  the  ground  floor '  there.  That  was  New 
York  forethought,  by  Jove ! " 

Tembarom  shuffled  a  little  in  his  chair,  and  grinned  a  faint, 
pleased  grin. 

"  I  'm  a  man  of  the  world,  my  boy  —  the  business  world," 
Palliser  commented,  hoping  that  he  concealed  his  extreme  satis 
faction.  "  I  know  New  York,  though  I  have  n't  lived  there. 
I  'm  only  hoping  to.  Your  air  of  ingenuous  ignorance  is  the 


T.  TEMBAROM  417 

cleverest  thing  about  you,"  which  agreeable  implication  of  the 
fact  that  he  had  been  privately  observant  and  impressed  ought 
to  have  fetched  the  bounder  if  anything  would. 

T.  Tembarom's  grin  was  no  longer  faint,  but  spread  itself. 
Palliser's  first  impression  was  thafrhe  had  "  fetched  "  him.  But 
when  he  answered,  though  the  very  crudeness  of  his  words 
seemed  merely  the  result  of  his  betrayal  into  utter  tactlessness  by 
soothed  vanity,  there  was  something  —  a  shade  of  something  — 
not  entirely  satisfactory  in  his  face  and  nasal  twang. 

"Well,  I  guess,"  he  said,  "New  York  did  teach  a  fellow 
not  to  buy  a  gold  brick  off  every  con  man  that  came  along." 

Palliser  was  guilty  of  a  mere  ghost  of  a  start.  Was  there 
something  in  it,  or  was  he  only  the  gross,  blundering  fool  he 
had  trusted  to  his  being?  He  stared  at  him  a  moment,  and 
saw  that  there  was  something  under  the  words  and  behind  his 
professedly  flattered  grin  —  something  which  must  be  treated 
with  a  high  hand. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  he  exclaimed  haughtily.     "  I  don't . 
like  your  tone.     Do  you  take  me  for  what  you  call  a  'con 
man'?" 

"  Good  Lord,  no ! "  answered  Tembarom ;  and  he  looked 
straight  at  Palliser  and  spoke  slowly.  "  You  're  a  gentleman, 
and  you're  paying  me  a  visit.  You  could  no  more  try  on  a 
game  to  do  me  in  my  own  house  than  —  well,  than  I  could  tell 
you  if  I  'd  got  on  to  you  if  I  saw  you  doing  it.  You  're  a 
gentleman." 

Palliser  glared  back  into  his  infuriatingly  candid  eyes.  He 
was  a  far  cry  from  being  a  dullard  himself;  he  was  sharp 
enough  to  "  catch  on  "  to  the  revelation  that  the  situation  was 
not  what  he  had  thought  it,  the  type  was  more  complex  than 
he  had  dreamed.  The  chap  had  been  playing  a  part;  he  had 
absolutely  been  "jollying  him  along,"  after  the  New  York 
fashion.  He  became  pale  with  humiliated  rage,  though  he 
knew  his  only  defense  was  to  control  himself  and  profess  not 
to  see  through  the  trick.  Until  he  could  use  his  big  lever,  he 
added  to  himself. 

"  Oh,  I  see,"  he  commented  acridly.  "  I  suppose  you  don't 
realize  that  your  figures  of  speech  are  unfortunate." 


418  T.  TEMBAROM 

"That  comes  of  New  York  streets,  too/'  Tembarom  an 
swered  with  deliberation.  "  But  you  can't  live  as  I  've  lived 
and  be  dead  easy  —  not  dead  easy." 

Palliser  had  left  his  chair,  and  stood  in  contemptuous  silence. 

"  You  know  how  a  fellow  hates  to  be  thought  dead  easy  " — 
Tembarom  actually  went  to  the  insolent  length  of  saying  the 
words  with  a  touch  of  cheerful  confidingness  — "  when  he  's 
not.  And  I  'm  not.  Have  another  drink." 

There  was  a  pause.  Palliser  began  to  see,  or  thought  he 
began  to  see,  where  he  stood.  He  had  come  to  Temple  Bar- 
holm  because  he  had  been  driven  into  a  corner  and  had  a 
dangerous  fight  before  him.  In  anticipation  of  it  he  had  been 
following  a  clue  for  some  time,  though  at  the  outset  it  had  been 
one  of  incredible  slightness.  Only  his  absolute  faith  in  his 
theory  that  every  man  had  something  to  gain  or  lose,  which  he 
concealed  discreetly,  had  led  him  to  it.  He  held  a  card  too 
valuable  to  be  used  at  the  beginning  of  a  game.  Its  power 
might  have  lasted  a  long  time,  and  proved  an  influence  without 
limit.  He  forbore  any  mental  reference  to  blackmail;  the 
word  was  absurd.  One  used  what  fell  into  one's  hands.  If 
Tembarom  had  followed  his  lead  with  any  degree  of  docility,  he 
would  have  felt  it  wiser  to  save  his  ammunition  until  further 
pressure  was  necessary.  But  behind  his  ridiculous  rawness,  his 
foolish  jocularity,  and  his  professedly  candid  good  humor,  had 
been  hidden  the  Yankee  trickster  who  was  fool  enough  to  think 
he  could  play  his  game  through.  Well,  he  could  not. 

During  the  few  moments'  pause  he  saw  the  situation  as  by 
a  photographic  flashlight.  He  leaned  over  the  table  and  sup 
plied  himself  with  a  fresh  brandy  and  soda  from  the  tray  of 
siphons  and  decanters.  He  gave  himself  time  to  take  the 
glass  up  in  his  hand. 

"  No,"  he  answered,  "  you  are  not  f  dead  easy/  That 's  why 
I  am  going  to  broach  another  subject  to  you." 

Tembarom  was  refilling  his  pipe. 

"  Go  ahead,"  he  said. 

"Who,  by  the  way,  is  Mr.  Strangeways ? " 

He   was   deliberate    and   entirely   unemotional.     So   was   T. 


T.   TEMBAEOM  419 

Tembarom  when,  with  match  applied  to  his  tobacco,  he  replied 
between  puffs  as  he  lighted  it : 

"  You  can  search  me.  You  can  search  him,  too,  for  that 
matter.  He  does  n't  know  who  he  is  himself." 

"  Bad  luck  for  him ! "  remarked  Palliser,  and  allowed  a 
slight  pause  again.  After  it  he  added,  "  Did  it  ever  strike  you 
it  might  be  good  luck  for  somebody  else  ?  " 

"  Somebody  else  ?  "  Tembarom  puffed  more  slowly,  perhaps 
because  his  pipe  was  lighted. 

Palliser  took  some  brandy  in  his  soda. 

"  There  are  men,  you  know,"  he  suggested,  "  who  can  be 
spared  by  their  relatives.  I  have  some  myself,  by  Jove ! "  he 
added  with  a  laugh.  "  You  keep  him  rather  dark,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  He  does  n't  like  to  see  people." 

"Does  he  object  to  people  seeing  him?  I  saw  him  once 
myself." 

"  When  you  threw  the  gravel  at  his  window  ?  " 

Palliser  stared  contemptuously. 

"  What  are  you  talking  about  ?  I  did  not  throw  stones  at 
his  window,"  he  lied.  "  I  'm  not  a  school-boy." 

"  That 's  so/'  Tembarom  admitted. 

"  I  saw  him,  nevertheless.  And  I  cast  tell  you  he  gave  me 
rather  a  start." 

"Why?" 

Palliser  half  laughed  again.  He  did  not  mean  to  go  too 
quickly;  he  would  let  the  thing  get  on  Tembarom's  nerves  grad 
ually. 

"  Well,  I  'm  hanged  if  I  did  n't  take  him  for  a  man  who  is 
dead." 

"  Enough  to  give  any  fellow  a  jolt,"  Tembarom  admitted 
again. 

"  It  gave  me  a  '  jolt.'  Good  word,  that.  But  it  would  give 
you  a  bigger  one,  my  dear  fellow,  if  he  was  the  man  he  looked 
like." 

"  Why  ?  "  Tembarom  asked  laconically. 

"  He  looked  like  Jem  Temple  Barholm." 

He  saw  Tembarom  start.     There  could  be  no  denying  it. 


420  T.  TEMBAEOM 

"You  thought  that?  Honest?"  he  said  sharply,  as  if  for  a 
moment  he  had  lost  his  head.  "  You  thought  that  ?  " 

"Don't  be  nervous.  Perhaps  I  couldn't  have  sworn  to  it. 
I  did  not  see  him  very  close." 

T.  Tembarom  puffed  rapidly  at  his  pipe,  and  only  ejac- 
lated: 

"  Oh ! " 

"  Of  course  he 's  dead.  If  he  was  n't," —  with  a  shrug  of 
his  shoulders, — "Lady  Joan  Fayre  would  be  Lady  Joan  Tem 
ple  Barholm,  and  the  pair  would  be  bringing  up  an  interesting 
family  here."  He  looked  about  the  room,  and  then,  as  if  sud 
denly  recalling  the  fact,  added,  "  By  George !  you  'd  be  selling 
newspapers,  or  making  them  —  which  was  it  ?  —  in  New 
York!" 

It  was  by  no  means  unpleasing  to  see  that  he  had  made  his 
hit  there.  T.  Tembarom  swung  about  and  walked  across  the 
room  with  a  suddenly  perturbed  expression. 

"  Say,"  he  put  it  to  him,  coming  back,  "  are  you  in  earnest, 
or  are  you  just  saying  it  to  give  me  a  jolt  ?  " 

Palliser  studied  him.  The  American  sharpness  was  not  al 
ways  so  keen  as  it  sometimes  seemed.  His  face  would  have  be 
trayed  his  uneasiness  to  the  dullest  onlooker. 

"  Have  you  any  objection  to  my  seeing  him  in  his  own 
room  ?  "  Palliser  inquired. 

"  It  does  him  harm  to  see  people,"  Tembarom  said,  with 
nervous  brusqueness.  "  It  worries  him." 

Palliser  smiled  a  quiet  but  far  from  agreeable  smile.  He 
enjoyed  what  he  put  into  it. 

"  Quite  so ;  best  to  keep  him  quiet,"  he  returned.  "  Do  you 
know  what  my  advice  would  be?  Put  him  in  a  comfortable 
sanatorium.  A  lot  of  stupid  investigations  would  end  in  noth 
ing,  of  course,  but  they  'd  be  a  frightful  bore." 

He  thought  it  extraordinarily  stupid  in  T.  Tembarom  to 
come  nearer  to  him  with  an  anxious  eagerness  entirely  uncon 
cealed,  if  he  really  knew  what  he  was  doing. 

"  Are  you  sure  that  if  you  saw  him  close  you  'd  know,  so 
that  you  could  swear  to  him  ?  "  he  demanded. 

"  You  're  extremely  nervous,  are  n't  you  ?  "  Palliser  watched 


T.  TEMBAKOM  421 

him  with  smiling  coolness.  "  Of  course  Jem  Temple  Barholm 
is  dead ;  but  I  've  no  doubt  that  if  I  saw  this  man  of  yours,  I 
could  swear  he  had  remained  dead  —  if  I  were  asked." 

"  If  you  knew  him  well,  you  could  make  me  sure.  You 
could  swear  one  way  or  another.  I  want  to  be  sure,"  said  Tem- 
barom. 

"  So  should  I  in  your  place ;  could  n't  be  too  sure.  Well, 
since  you  ask  me,  I  could  swear.  I  knew  him  well  enough. 
He  was  one  of  my  most  intimate  enemies.  What  do  you  say 
to  letting  me  see  him  ?  " 

"I  would  if  I  could,"  Tembarom  replied,  as  if  thinking  it 
over.  "I  would  if  I  could." 

Palliser  treated  him  to  the  far  from  pleasing  smile  again. 

"  But  it 's  quite  impossible  at  present  ? "  he  suggested. 
"  Excitement  is  not  good  for  him,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing. 
You  want  time  to  think  it  over/' 

Tembarom's  slowly  uttered  answer,  spoken  as  if  he  were  still 
considering  the  matter,  was  far  from  being  the  one  he  had  ex 
pected. 

"I  want  time;  but  that's  not  the  reason  you  can't  see  him 
right  now.  You  can't  see  him  because  he 's  not  here.  He  's 
gone." 

Then  it  was  Palliser  who  started,  taken  totally  unaware  in  a 
manner  which  disgusted  him  altogether.  He  had  to  pull  him 
self  up. 

"  He 's  gone ! "  he  repeated.  "  You  are  quicker  than  I 
thought.  You  've  got  him  safely  away,  have  you  ?  Well,  I  told 
you  a  comfortable  sanatorium  would  be  a  good  idea." 

"Yes,  you  did."  T.  Tembarom  hesitated,  seeming  to  be 
thinking  it  over  again.  "  That 's  so."  He  laid  his  pipe  aside 
because  it  had  gone  out. 

He  suddenly  sat  down  at  the  table,  putting  his  elbows  on  it 
and  his  face  in  his  hands,  with  a  harried  effect  of  wanting  to 
think  it  over  in  a  sort  of  withdrawal  from  his  immediate  sur 
roundings.  This  was  as  it  should  be.  His  Yankee  readiness 
had  deserted  him  altogether. 

"  By  Jove !  you  are  nervous  !  "  Palliser  commented.  "  It 's 
not  surprising,  though.  I  can  sympathize  with  you."  With  a 


432  T.  TEMBAROM 

markedly  casual  air  he  himself  sat  down  and  drew  his  docu 
ments  toward  him.  "Let  us  talk  of  something  else/'  he  said. 
He  preferred  to  be  casual  and  incidental,  if  he  were  allowed. 
It  was  always  better  to  suggest  things  and  let  them  sink  in 
until  people  saw  the  advantage  of  considering  them  and  you. 
To  manage  a  business  matter  without  open  argument  or  too 
frank  a  display  of  weapons  was  at  once  more  comfortable  and 
in  better  taste. 

"You  are  making  a  great  mistake  in  not  going  into  this," 
he  suggested  amiably.  "  You  could  go  in  now  as  you  went  into 
Hutchinson's  affair,  'on  the  ground  floor.'  That's  a  good 
enough  phrase,  too.  Twenty  thousand  pounds  would  make  you 
a  million.  You  Americans  understand  nothing  less  than  mil 
lions." 

But  T.  Tembarom  did  not  take  him  up.  He  muttered  in  a 
worried  way  from  behind  his  shading  hands,  "  We  '11  talk  about 
that  later." 

"  Why  not  talk  about  it  now,  before  anything  can  interfere  ?  " 
Palliser  persisted  politely,  almost  gently. 

Tembarom  sprang  up,  restless  and  excited.  He  had  plainly 
been  planning  fast  in  his  temporary  seclusion. 

"  I  'm  thinking  of  what  you  said  about  Lady  Joan,"  he 
burst  forth.  "  Say,  she 's  gone  through  all  this  Jem  Temple 
Barholm  thing  once;  it  about  half  killed  her.  If  any  one 
raised  false  hopes  for  her,  she  'd  go  through  it  all  again. 
Once  is  enough  for  any  woman." 

His  effect  at  professing  heat  and  strong  feeling  made  a  spark 
of  amusement  show  itself  in  Pal  User's  eye.  It  struck  him  as 
being  peculiarly  American  in  its  affectation  of  sentiment  and 
chivalry. 

"  I  see,"  he  said.  "  It 's  Lady  Joan  you  're  disturbed  about. 
You  want  to  spare  her  another  shock,  I  see.  You  are  a  con 
siderate  fellow,  as  well  as  a  man  of  business." 

"  I  don't  want  her  to  begin  to  hope  if  — " 

"  Very  good  taste  on  your  part."  Palliser's  polite  approval 
was  admirable,  but  he  tapped  lightly  on  the  paper  after  ex 
pressing  it.  "  I  don't  want  to  seem  to  press  you  about  this, 
but  don't  you  feel  inclined  to  consider  it?  I  can  assure  you 


T.  TEMBAROM  423 

that  an  investment  of  this  sort  would  be  a  good  thing  to  de 
pend  on  if  the  unexpected  happened.  If  you  gave  me  your 
check  now,  it  would  be  Cedric  stock  to-morrow,  and  quite  safe. 
Suppose  you — " 

"I  —  I  don't  believe  you  were  right  —  about  what  you 
thought."  The  sharp-featured  face  was  changing  from  pale 
to  red.  "You'd  have  to  be  able  to  swear  to  it,  anyhow,  and 
I  don't  believe  you  can."  He  looked  at  Palliser  in  eager  and 
anxious  uncertainty.  "  If  you  could,"  he  dragged  out,  "  I 
should  n't  have  a  check-book.  Where  would  you  be  then  ?  " 

"I  should  be  in  comfortable  circumstances,  dear  chap,  and 
so  would  you  if  you  gave  me  the  money  to-night,  while  you 
possess  a  check-book.  It  would  be  only  a  sort  of  temporary 
loan  in  any  case,  whatever  turned  up.  The  investment  would 
quadruple  itself.  But  there  is  no  time  to  be  lost.  Understand 
that." 

T.  Tembarom  broke  out  into  a  sort  of  boyish  resentment. 

"  I  don't  believe  he  did  look  like  him,  anyhow,"  he  cried. 
"I  believe  it's  all  a  bluff."  His  crude-sounding  young  swag 
ger  had  a  touch  of  final  desperation  in  it  as  he  turned  on 
Palliser.  "  I  'm  dead  sure  it 's  a  bluff.  What  a  fool  I  was  not 
to  think  of  that!  You  want  to  bluff  me  into  going  into  this 
Cedric  thing.  You  could  no  more  swear  he  was  like  him  than 
—  than  I  could." 

The  outright,  presumptuous,  bold  stripping  bare  of  his 
phrases  infuriated  Palliser  too  suddenly  and  too  much.  He 
stepped  up  to  him  and  looked  into  his  eyes. 

"  Bluff  you,  you  young  bounder ! "  he  flung  out  at  him. 
"  You  're  losing  your  head.  You  're  not  in  New  York  streets 
here.  You  are  talking  to  a  gentleman.  No,"  he  said  furiously, 
"  I  could  n't  swear  that  he  was  like  him,  but  what  I  can  swear 
in  any  court  of  justice  is  that  the  man  I  saw  at  the  window 
was  Jem  Temple  Barholm,  and  no  other  man  on  earth." 

When  he  had  said  it,  he  saw  the  astonishing  dolt  change  his 
expression  utterly  again,  as  if  in  a  flash.  He  stood  up,  putting 
his  hands  in  his  pockets.  His  face  changed,  his  voice  changed. 

"Fine!"  he  said.  "First-rate!  That's  what  I  wanted  to 
get  on  to." 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 


FTER  this  climax  the  interview  was  not  so 
long  as  it  was  interesting.  Two  men  as  far 
apart  as  the  poles,  as  remote  from  each 
other  in  mind  and  body,  in  training  and 
education  or  lack  of  it,  in  desires  and  inten 
tions,  in  points  of  view  and  trend  of  being, 
as  nature  and  circumstances  could  make 
them,  talked  in  a  language  foreign  to  each 
other  of  a  wildly  strange  thing.  Palliser' s 
arguments  and  points  of  aspect  were  less  un 
known  to  T.  Tembarom  than  his  own  were 
to  Palliser.  He  had  seen  something  very 
like  them  before,  though  they  had  developed  in  different  sur 
roundings  and  had  been  differently  expressed.  The  colloquial 
ism  "  You  're  not  doing  that  for  your  health "  can  be  made 
to  cover  much  ground  in  the  way  of  the  stripping  bare  of 
motives  for  action.  This  was  what,  in  excellent  and  well-chosen 
English,  Captain  Palliser  frankly  said  to  his  host.  Of  noth 
ing  which  T.  Tembarom  said  to  him  in  his  own  statement  did 
he  believe  one  word  or  syllable.  The  statement  in  question  was 
not  long  or  detailed.  It  was,  of  course,  Palliser  saw,  a  ridicu 
lously  impudent  flinging  together  of  a  farrago  of  nonsense,  trans 
parent  in  its  effort  beyond  belief.  Before  he  had  listened  five 
minutes  with  the  distinctly  "  nasty  "  smile,  he  burst  out  laughing. 
"That  is  a  good  *  spiel/  my  dear  chap/'  he  said.  "It's  as 
good  a  '  spiel '  as  your  typewriter  friend  used  to  rattle  off  when 
he  thought  he  saw  a  customer ;  but  I  'm  not  a  customer." 

Tembarom  looked  at  him  interestedly  for  about  ten  seconds. 
His  hands  were  thrust  into  his  trousers  pockets,  as  was  his 
almost  invariable  custom.  Absorption  and  speculation,  even 

424 


T.  TEMBAROM  425 

emotion  and  excitement,  were  usually  expressed  in  this  uncon 
ventional  manner. 

"You  don't  believe  a  darned  word  of  it,"  was  his  sole  ob 
servation. 

"Not  a  darned  word/7  Palliser  smiled.  "You  are  trying  a 
'  bluff/  which  does  n't  do  credit  to  your  usual  sharpness.  It 's 
a  bluff  that  is  actually  silly.  It  makes  you  look  like  an  ass." 

"Well,  it's  true,"  said  Tembarom;  "it's  true." 

Palliser  laughed  again. 

"  I  only  said  it  made  you  look  like  an  ass,"  he  remarked. 
"  I  don't  profess  to  understand  you  altogether,  because  you  are 
a  new  species.  Your  combination  of  ignorance  and  sharpness 
is  n't  easy  to  calculate  on.  But  there  is  one  thing  I  have  found 
out,  and  that  is,  that  when  you  want  to  play  a  particular  sharp 
trick  you  are  willing  to  let  people  take  you  for  a  fool.  I  '11 
own  you've  deceived  me  once  or  twice,  even  when  I  suspected 
you.  I  've  heard  that 's  one  of  the  most  successful  methods 
used  in  the  American  business  world.  That's  why  I  only  say 
you  look  like  an  ass.  You  are  an  ass  in  some  respects;  but 
you  are  letting  yourself  look  like  one  now  for  some  shrewd  end. 
You  either  think  you'll  slip  out  of  danger  by  it  when  I  make 
this  discovery  public,  or  you  think  you'll  somehow  trick  me 
into  keeping  my  mouth  shut." 

"  I  need  n't  trick  you  into  keeping  your  mouth  shut,"  Tem 
barom  suggested.  "  There 's  a  straight  way  to  do  that,  ain't 
there  ?  "  And  he  indelicately  waved  his  hand  toward  the  docu 
ments  pertaining  to  the  Cedric  Company. 

It  was  stupid  as  well  as  gross,  in  his  hearer's  opinion.  If 
he  had  known  what  was  good  for  him  he  would  have  been  clever 
enough  to  ignore  the  practical  presentation  of  his  case  made 
half  an  hour  or  so  earlier. 

"No,  there  is  not,"  Palliser  replied,  with  serene  mendacity. 
"  No  suggestion  of  that  sort  has  been  made.  My  business 
proposition  was  given  out  on  an  entirely  different  basis.  You, 
of  course,  choose  to  put  your  personal  construction  upon  it." 

"  Gee  whiz !  "  ejaculated  T.  Tembarom.  "  I  was  'way  off, 
wasn't  I?" 

"I  told  you  that  professing  to  be  an  ass  wouldn't  be  good 


426  T.  TEMBAEOM 

enough  in  this  case.  Don't  go  on  with  it,"  said  Palliser, 
sharply. 

"  You  're  throwing  bouquets.  Let  a  fellow  be  natural," 
said  Tembarom. 

"  That  is  bluff,  too,"  Palliser  replied  more  sharply  still. 
"  I  am  not  taken  in  by  it,  bold  as  it  is.  Ever  since  you  came 
here,  you  have  been  playing  this  game.  It  was  your  fool's 
grin  and  guffaw  and  pretense  of  good  nature  that  first  made 
me  suspect  you  of  having  something  up  your  sleeve.  You 
were  too  unembarrassed  and  candid." 

"  So  you  began  to  look  out,"  Tembarom  said,  considering 
him  curiously,  "  just  because  of  that."  Then  suddenly  he 
laughed  outright,  the  fool's  guffaw. 

It  somehow  gave  Palliser  a  sort  of  puzzled  shock.  It  was  so 
hearty  that  it  remotely  suggested  that  he  appeared  more  secure 
than  seemed  possible.  He  tried  to  reply  to  him  with  a  languid 
contempt  of  manner. 

"You  think  you  have  some  tremendously  sharp  'deal'  in 
your  hand,"  he  said,  "  but  you  had  better  remember  you  are  in 
England  where  facts  are  like  sledge-hammers.  You  can't 
dodge  from  under  them  as  you  can  in  America.  I  dare  say 
you  won't  answer  me,  but  I  should  like  to  ask  you  what  you 
propose  to  do." 

"  I  don't  know  what  1 7m  going  to  do  any  more  than  you  do," 
was  the  unilluminating  answer.  "I  don't  mind  telling  you 
that." 

"  And  what  do  you  think  he  will  do  ?  " 

"  I  've  got  to  wait  till  I  find  out.  I  'm  doing  it.  That  was 
what  I  told  you.  What  are  you  going  to  do  ? "  he  added 
casually. 

"  I  'm  going  to  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  to  have  an  interview 
with  Palford  &  Grimby." 

"  That 's  a  good  enough  move,"  commented  Tembarom,  "  if 
you  think  you  can  prove  what  you  say.  You've  got  to  prove 
things,  you  know.  I  couldn't,  so  I  lay  low  and  waited,  just 
like  I  told  you." 

"  Of  course,  of  course,"  Palliser  himself  almost  grinned  ill 
his  derision.  "You  have  only  been  waiting.'' 


T.  TEMBAROM  427 

"  When  you  've  got  to  prove  a  thing,  and  have  n't  much  to 
go  on,  you  've  got  to  wait,"  said  T.  Tembarom  — "  to  wait  and 
keep  your  mouth  shut,  whatever  happens,  and  to  let  yourself 
be  taken  for  a  fool  or  a  horse-thief  is  n't  as  gilt-edged  a  job  as  it 
seems.  But  proof 's  what  it 's  best  to  have  before  you  ring  up 
the  curtain.  You'd  have  to  have  it  yourself.  So  would  Pal- 
ford  &  Grimby  before  it'd  be  stone-cold  safe  to  rush  things 
and  accuse  a  man  of  a  penitentiary  offense." 

He  took  his  unconventional  half-seat  on  the  edge  of  the  table, 
with  one  foot  on  the  floor  and  the  other  one  lightly  swinging. 
"  Palford  &  Grimby  are  clever  old  ducks,  and  they  know  that 
much.  Thing  they  'd  know  best  would  be  that  to  set  a  raft  of 
lies  going  about  a  man  who's  got  money  enough  to  defend 
himself,  and  to  make  them  pay  big  damages  for  it  afterward, 
would  be  pretty  bum  business.  I  guess  they  know  all  about 
what  proof  stands  for.  They  may  have  to  wait;  so  may  you, 
same  as  I  have." 

Palliser  realized  that  he  was  in  the  position  of  a  man  strik 
ing  at  an  adversary  whose  construction  was  of  india-rubber. 
He  struck  home,  but  left  no  bruise  and  drew  no  blood,  which 
was  an  irritating  thing.  He  lost  his  temper. 

"  Proof !  "  he  jerked  out.  "  There  will  be  proof  enough,  and 
when  it  is  made  public,  you  will  not  control  the  money  you 
threaten  to  use." 

"  When  you  get  proof,  just  you  let  me  hear  about  it,"  T. 
Tembarom  said.  "  And  all  the  money  I  'm  threatening  on 
shall  go  where  it  belongs,  and  I  '11  go  back  to  New  York  and 
sell  papers  if  I  have  to.  It  won't  come  as  hard  as  you 
think." 

The  flippant  insolence  with  which  he  brazened  out  his  pre 
tense  that  he  had  not  lied,  that  his  ridiculous  romance  was 
actual  and  simple  truth,  suggested  dangerous  readiness  of  de 
vice  and  secret  knowledge  of  power  which  could  be  adroitly 
used. 

"  You  are  merely  marking  time,"  said  Palliser,  rising,  with 
cold  determination  to  be  juggled  with  no  longer.  "You  have 
hidden  him  away  where  you  think  you  can  do  as  you  please 
with  a  man  who  is  an  invalid.  That  is  your  dodge.  You  've 


428  T.  TEMBAHOM 

got  him  hidden  somewhere,  and  his  friends  had  better  get  at 
him  before  it  is  too  late/' 

"  I  'm  not  answering  questions  this  evening,  and  I  'm  not 
giving  addresses,  though  there  are  no  witnesses  to  take  them 
down.  If  he 's  hidden  away,  he  's  where  he  won't  be  disturbed," 
was  T.  Tembarom's  rejoinder.  "You  may  lay  your  bottom 
dollar  on  that." 

Palliser  walked  toward  the  door  without  speaking.  He  had 
almost  reached  it  when  he  whirled  about  involuntarily,  arrested 
by  a  shout  of  laughter. 

"  Say,"  announced  Tembarom,  "  you  may  n't  know  it,  but 
this  lay-out  would  make  a  first-rate  turn  in  a  vaudeville.  You 
think  I  'm  lying,  I  look  like  I  'm  lying,  I  guess  every  word  I 
say  sounds  like  I  'm  lying.  To  a  fellow  like  you,  I  guess  it 
could  n't  help  but  sound  that  way.  And  I  'm  not  lying.  That 's 
where  the  joke  comes  in.  I  'm  not  lying.  I  've  not  told  you 
all  I  know  because  it 's  none  of  your  business  and  would  n't 
help ;  but  what  I  have  told  you  is  the  stone-cold  truth." 

He  was  keeping  it  up  to  the  very  end  with  a  desperate  deter 
mination  not  to  let  go  his  hold  of  his  pose  until  he  had  made 
his  private  shrewd  deal,  whatsoever  it  was.  At  least,  so  it  struck 
Palliser,  who  merely  said: 

"  I  'm  leaving  the  house  by  the  first  train  to-morrow  morn 
ing."  He  fixed  a  cold  gray  eye  on  the  fool's  grin. 

"  Six  forty-five,"  said  T.  Tembarom.  "  I  '11  order  the  car 
riage.  I  might  go  up  myself." 

The  door  closed. 

Tembarom  was  looking  cheerful  enough  when  he  went  into  his 
bedroom.  He  had  become  used  to  its  size  and  had  learned  to 
feel  that  it  was  a  good  sort  of  place.  It  had  the  hall  bed 
room  at  Mrs.  Bowse's  boarding-house  "beaten  to  a  frazzle." 
There  was  about  everything  in  it  that  any  man  could  hatch  up 
an  idea  he'd  like  to  have.  He  had  slept  luxuriously  on  the 
splendid  carved  bed  through  long  nights,  he  had  lain  awake  and 
thought  out  things  on  it,  he  had  lain  and  watched  the  fire-light 
flickering  on  the  ceiling,  as  he  thought  about  Ann  and  made 
plans,  and  "  fixed  up  "  the  Harlem  flat  which  could  be  run  on 


T.  TEMBAROM  429 

fifteen  per.  He  had  picked  out  the  pieces  of  furniture  from 
the  Sunday  Earth  advertisement  sheet,  and  had  set  them 
in  their  places.  He  always  saw  the  six-dollar  mahogany- 
stained  table  set  for  supper,  with  Ann  at  one  end  and  himself 
at  the  other.  He  had  grown  actually  fond  of  the  old  room 
because  of  the  silence  and  comfort  of  it,  which  tended  to  give 
reality  to  his  dreams.  Pearson,  who  had  ceased  to  look  anxious, 
and  who  had  acquired  fresh  accomplishments  in  the  form  of 
an  entirely  new  set  of  duties,  was  waiting,  and  handed  him  a 
telegram. 

"  This  just  arrived,  sir,"  he  explained.  "  James  brought 
it  here  because  he  thought  you  had  come  up,  and  I  did  n't  send 
it  down  because  I  heard  you  on  the  stairs/' 

"That's  right.     Thank  you,  Pearson,"  his  master  said. 

He  tore  the  yellow  envelop,  and  read  the  message.  In  a 
moment  Pearson  knew  it  was  not  an  ordinary  message,  and 
therefore  remained  more  than  ordinarily  impassive  of  expres 
sion.  He  did  not  even  ask  of  himself  what  it  might  convey. 

Mr.  Temple  Barholm  stood  still  a  few  seconds,  with  the  look 
of  a  man  who  must  think  and  think  rapidly. 

"What  is  the  next  train  to  London,  Pearson?"  he  asked. 

"  There  is  one  at  twelve  thirty-six,  sir,"  he  answered.  "  It  'a 
the  last  till  six  in  the  morning.  You  have  to  change  at  Crow- 

ley." 

"  You  're  always  ready,  Pearson,"  returned  Mr.  Temple  Bar- 
holm.  "  I  want  to  get  that  train." 

Pearson  was  always  ready.  Before  the  last  word  was  quite 
spoken  he  had  turned  and  opened  the  bedroom  door. 

"  I  '11  order  the  dog-cart ;  that 's  quickest,  sir,"  he  said.  He 
was  out  of  the  room  and  in  again  almost  immediately.  Then 
he  was  at  the  wardrobe  and  taking  out  what  Mr.  Temple  Bar- 
holm  called  his  "  grip,"  but  what  Pearson  knew  as  a  Gladstone 
bag.  It  was  always  kept  ready  packed  for  unexpected  emergen 
cies  of  travel. 

Mr.  Temple  Barholm  sat  at  the  table  and  drew  pen  and  paper 
toward  him.  He  looked  excited;  he  looked  more  troubled  than 
Pearson  had  seen  him  look  before. 

"  The  wire  's  from  Sir  Ormsby  Galloway,  Pearson,"  he  said. 


430  T.  TEMBAEOM 

"  It 's  about  Mr.  Strangeways.  He 's  done  what  I  used  to  be 
always  watching  out  against :  he  's  disappeared/' 

"  Disappeared,  sir ! n  cried  Pearson,  and  almost  dropped  the 
Gladstone  bag.  "  I  beg  pardon,  sir.  I  know  there  's  no  time 
to  lose."  He  steadied  the  bag  and  went  on  with  his  task  with 
out  even  turning  round. 

His  master  was  in  some  difficulty.  He  began  to  write,  and 
after  dashing  off  a  few  words,  stopped,  and  tore  them  up. 

"  No,"  he  muttered,  "  that  won't  do.  There 's  no  time  to 
explain."  Then  he  began  again,  but  tore  up  his  next  lines  also. 
"That  says  too  much  and  not  enough.  It'd  frighten  the 
life  out  of  her." 

He  wrote  again,  and  ended  by  folding  the  sheet  and  putting 
it  into  an  envelop. 

"  This  is  a  message  for  Miss  Alicia,"  he  said  to  Pearson. 
"  Give  it  to  her  in  the  morning.  I  don't  want  her  to  worry 
because  I  had  to  go  in  a  hurry.  Tell  her  everything 's  going 
to  be  all  right ;  but  you  need  n't  mention  that  anything 's  hap 
pened  to  Mr.  Strangeways." 

"Yes,  sir,"  answered  Pearson. 

Mr.  Temple  Barholm  was  already  moving  about  the  room, 
doing  odd  things  for  himself  rapidly,  and  he  went  on  speak 
ing. 

"I  want  you  and  Eose  to  know,"  he  said,  "that  whatever 
happens,  you  are  both  fixed  all  right  —  both  of  you.  I  've  seen 
to  that." 

"  Thank  you,  sir,"  Pearson  faltered,  made  uneasy  by  some 
thing  new  in  his  tone.  "You  said  whatever  happened,  sir — " 

"  Whatever  old  thing  happens,"  his  master  took  him  up. 

"Not  to  you,  sir.     Oh,  I  hope,  sir,  that  nothing — " 

Mr.  Temple  Barholm  put  a  cheerful  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"Nothing's  going  to  happen  that'll  hurt  any  one.  Things 
may  change,  that's  all.  You  and  Eose  are  all  right,  Miss 
Alicia 's  all  right,  I  'm  all  right.  Come  along.  Got  to  catch 
that  train." 

In  this  manner  he  took  his  departure. 

Miss  Alicia  had  from  necessity  acquired  the  habit  of  early 
rising  at  Eowcroft  vicarage,  and  as  the  next  morning  was  bright, 


'The  wire's  from  Sir  Ormsby  Galloway,  Pearson' 


T.  TEMBAEOM  431 

she  was  clipping  roses  on  a  terrace  before  breakfast  when  Pear 
son  brought  her  the  note. 

"  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  received  a  telegram  from  London  last 
night,  ma'am,"  he  explained,  "and  he  was  obliged  to  take  the 
midnight  train.  He  hadn't  time  to  do  any  more  than  leave 
a  few  lines  for  you,  but  he  asked  me  to  tell  you  that  nothing 
disturbing  had  occurred.  He  specially  mentioned  that  every 
thing  was  all  right." 

"  But  how  very  sudden ! "  exclaimed  Miss  Alicia,  opening 
her  note  and  beginning  to  read  it.  Plainly  it  had  been  written 
hurriedly  indeed.  It  read  as  though  he  had  been  in  such  haste 
that  he  had  n't  had  time  to  be  clear. 

Dear  little  Miss  Alicia : 

I  've  got  to  light  out  of  here  as  quick  as  I  can  make  it.  I 
can't  even  stop  to  tell  you  why.  There's  just  one  thing  — 
don't  get  rattled,  Miss  Alicia.  Whatever  any  one  says  or  does, 
just  don't  let  yourself  get  rattled. 

Yours  affectionately, 

T.  TEMBAROM. 

"  Pearson,"  Miss  Alicia  exclaimed,  again  looking  up,  "  are 
you  sure  everything  is  all  right?" 

"  That  was  what  he  said,  ma'am.     ( All  right/  ma'am." 
"  Thank  you,  Pearson.     I  am  glad  to  hear  it." 
She  walked  to  and  fro  in  the  sunshine,  reading  the  note  and 
rereading  it. 

"  Of  course  if  he  said  it  was  all  right,  it  was  all  right,"  she 
murmured.  "  It  is  only  the  phrasing  that  makes  me  slightly 
nervous.  Why  should  he  ask  me  not  to  get  rattled?"  The 
term  was  by  this  time  as  familiar  to  her  as  any  in  Dr.  John 
son's  dictionary.  "  Of  course  he  knows  I  do  get  rattled  much 
too  easily;  but  why  should  I  be  in  danger  of  getting  rattled 
now  if  nothing  has  happened  ?  "  She  gave  a  very  small  start  as 
she  remembered  something.  "Could  it  be  that  Captain  Pal- 
liser —  But  how  could  he?  Though  I  do  not  like  Captain 
Palliser." 
Captain  Palliser,  her  distaste  for  whom  at  the  moment  quite 


432  T.   TEMBAROM 

agitated  her,  was  this  morning  an  early  riser  also,  and  as  she 
turned  in  her  walk  she  found  him  coming  toward  her. 

"  I  find  I  am  obliged  to  take  an  early  train  to  London  this 
morning,"  he  said,  after  their  exchange  of  greetings.  "It  is 
quite  unexpected.  I  spoke  to  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  about  it 
last  night." 

Perhaps  the  unexpectedness,  perhaps  a  certain  suggestion  of 
coincidence,  caused  Miss  Alicia's  side  ringlets  to  appear  mo 
mentarily  tremulous. 

"  Then  perhaps  we  had  better  go  in  to  breakfast  at  once," 
she  said. 

"  Is  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  down  ?  "  he  inquired  as  they  seated 
themselves  at  the  breakfast-table. 

"  He  is  not  here,"  she  answered.  "  He,  too,  was  called 
away  unexpectedly.  He  went  to  London  by  the  midnight 
train." 

She  had  never  been  so  aware  of  her  unchristian  lack  of  liking 
for  Captain  Palliser  as  she  was  when  he  paused  a  moment  be 
fore  he  made  any  comment.  His  pause  was  as  marked  as  a 
start,  and  the  smile  he  indulged  in  was,  she  felt,  most  singularly 
disagreeable.  It  was  a  smile  of  the  order  which  conceals  an 
unpleasant  explanation  of  itself. 

"  Oh,"  he  remarked,  "  he  has  gone  first,  has  he  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  answered,  pouring  out  his  coffee  for  him.  "  He 
evidently  had  business  of  importance." 

They  were  quite  alone,  and  she  was  not  one  of  the  women 
one  need  disturb  oneself  about.  She  had  been  browbeaten  into 
hypersensitive  timidity  early  in  life,  and  did  not  know  how  to 
resent  cleverly  managed  polite  bullying.  She  would  always  feel 
herself  at  fault  if  she  was  tempted  to  criticize  any  one.  She 
was  innocent  and  nervous  enough  to  betray  herself  to  any  ex 
tent,  because  she  would  feel  it  rude  to  refuse  to  answer  ques 
tions,  howsoever  far  they  exceeded  the  limits  of  polite  curiosity. 
He  had  learned  a  good  deal  from  her  in  the  past.  Why  not 
try  what  could  be  startled  out  of  her  now  ?  Thus  Captain  Pal 
liser  said: 

"  I  dare  say  you  feel  a  little  anxious  at  such  an  extraor 
dinarily  sudden  departure,"  he  suggested  amiably.  "  Bolting 


T.  TEMBAROM  433 

off  in  the  middle  of  the  night  was  sudden,  if  he  did  not  explain 
himself." 

"  He  had  no  time  to  explain,"  she  answered. 

"  That  makes  it  appear  all  the  more  sudden.  But  no  doubt 
he  left  you  a  message.  I  saw  you  were  reading  a  note  when  I 
joined  you  on  the  terrace." 

Lightly  casual  as  he  chose  to  make  the  words  sound,  they 
were  an  audacity  he  would  have  known  better  than  to  allow 
himself  with  any  one  but  a  timid  early- Victorian  spinster  whose 
politeness  was  hypersensitive  in  its  quality. 

"  He  particularly  desired  that  I  should  not  be  anxious,"  she 
said.  "  He  is  always  considerate." 

"  He  would,  of  course,  have  explained  everything  if  he  had 
not  been  so  hurried  ?  " 

"  Of  course,  if  it  had  been  necessary,"  answered  Miss  Alicia, 
nervously  sipping  her  tea. 

"  Naturally,"  said  Captain  Palliser.  "  His  note  no  doubt 
mentioned  that  he  went  away  on  business  connected  with  his 
friend  Mr.  Strangeways  ?  " 

There  was  no  question  of  the  fact  that  she  was  startled. 

"  He  had  not  time  enough,"  she  said.  "  He  could  only 
write  a  few  lines.  Mr.  Strangeways?" 

"  We  had  a  long  talk  about  him  last  night.  He  told  me  a 
remarkable  story,"  Captain  Palliser  went  on.  "  I  suppose  you 
are  quite  familiar  with  all  the  details  of  it?" 

"  I  know  how  he  found  him  in  New  York,  and  I  know  how 
generous  he  has  been  to  him." 

"  Have  you  been  told  nothing  more  ?  " 

"There  was  nothing  more  to  tell.  If  there  was  anything,  I 
am  sure  he  had  some  good  reason  for  not  telling  me,"  said 
Miss  Alicia,  loyally.  "  His  reasons  are  always  good." 

Palliser's  air  of  losing  a  shade  or  so  of  discretion  as  a  result 
of  astonishment  was  really  well  done. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that  he  has  not  even  hinted  that  ever 
since  he  arrived  at  Temple  Barholm  he  has  strongly  suspected 
Strangeways'  identity  —  that  he  has  even  known  who  he  is  ?  " 
he  exclaimed. 

Miss  Alicia's  small  hands  clung  to  the  table-cloth. 


434  T.  TEMBAROM 

"He  has  not  known  at  all.  He  has  been  most  anxious  to 
discover.  He  has  used  every  endeavor,"  she  brought  out  with 
some  difficulty. 

"You  say  he  has  been  trying  to  find  out?"  Palliser  inter 
posed. 

"  He  has  been  more  than  anxious,"  she  protested.  "  He  has 
been  to  London  again  and  again ;  he  has  gone  to  great  expense ; 
he  has  even  seen  people  from  Scotland  Yard.  I  have  sometimes 
almost  thought  he  was  assuming  more  responsibility  than  was 
just  to  himself.  In  the  case  of  a  relative  or  an  old  friend,  but 
for  an  entire  stranger —  Oh,  really,  I  ought  not  to  seem  to 
criticize.  I  do  not  presume  to  criticize  his  wonderful  gen 
erosity  and  determination  and  goodness.  No  one  should  pre 
sume  to  question  him." 

"  If  he  knows  that  you  feel  like  this  — "  Palliser  began. 

"  He  knows  all  that  I  feel,"  Miss  Alicia  took  him  up  with  a 
pretty,  rising  spirit.  "  He  knows  that  I  am  full  of  unspeak 
able  gratitude  to  him  for  his  beautiful  kindness  to  me;  he 
knows  that  I  admire  and  respect  and  love  him  in  a  way  I  could 
never  express,  and  that  I  would  do  anything  in  the  world  he 
could  wish  me  to  do." 

"  Naturally,"  said  Captain  Palliser.  "  I  was  only  about  to 
express  my  surprise  that  since  he  is  aware  of  all  this  he  has  not 
told  you  who  he  has  proved  Strangeways  to  be.  It  is  a  little 
odd,  you  know." 

"  I  think  " —  Miss  Alicia  was  even  gently  firm  in  her  reply 
— "  that  you  are  a  little  mistaken  in  believing  Mr.  Temple  Bar- 
holm  has  proved  Mr.  Strangeways  to  be  anybody.  When  he 
has  proof,  he  will  no  doubt  think  proper  to  tell  me  about  it. 
Until  then  I  should  prefer — " 

Palliser  laughed  as  he  finished  her  sentence. 

"  Not  to  know.  I  was  not  going  to  betray  him,  Miss  Alicia. 
He  evidently  has  one  of  his  excellent  reasons  for  keeping  things 
to  himself.  I  may  mention,  however,  that  it  is  not  so  much 
he  who  has  proof  as  I  myself." 

"  You ! "  How  could  she  help  quite  starting  in  her  seat 
when  his  gray  eyes  fixed  themselves  on  her  with  such  a  touch 
of  finely  amused  malice? 


T.  TEMBAEOM  435 

"  I  offered  him  the  proof  last  night,  and  it  rather  upset  him," 
he  said.  "  He  thought  no  one  knew  but  himself,  and  he  was 
not  inclined  to  tell  the  world.  He  was  upset  because  I  said  I 
had  seen  the  man  and  could  swear  to  his  identity.  That  was 
why  he  went  away  so  hurriedly.  He  no  doubt  went  to  see 
Strangeways  and  talk  it  over." 

"  See  Mr.  Strangeways  ?  But  Mr.  Strangeways  — "  Miss 
Alicia  rose  and  rang  the  bell. 

•    "  Tell  Pearson  I  wish  to  see  him  at  once,"  she  said  to  the 
footman. 

Palliser  took  in  her  mood  without  comment.  He  had  no 
objection  to  being  present  when  she  made  inquiries  of  Pearson. 

"  I  hear  the  wheels  of  the  dog-cart/'  he  remarked.  "  You 
see,  I  must  catch  my  train." 

Pearson  stood  at  the  door. 

"  Is  not  Mr.  Strangeways  in  his  room,  Pearson  ? "  Miss 
Alicia  asked. 

"  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  took  him  to  London  when  he  last 
went,  ma'am,"  answered  Pearson.  "  You  remember  he  went 
at  night.  The  doctor  thought  it  best." 

"  He  did  not  tell  you  that,  either  ?  "  said  Palliser,  casually. 

"  The  dog-cart  is  at  the  door,  sir,"  announced  Pearson. 

Miss  Alicia's  hand  was  unsteady  when  the  departing  guest 
took  it. 

"Don't  be  disturbed,"  he  said  considerately,  "but  a  most 
singular  thing  has  happened.  When  I  asked  so  many  questions 
about  Temple  Barholm's  Man  with  the  Iron  Mask  I  asked  them 
for  curious  reasons.  That  must  be  my  apology.  You  will 
hear  all  about  it  later,  probably  from  Palford  &  Grimby." 

When  he  had  left  the  room  Miss  Alicia  stood  upon  the  hearth 
rug  as  the  dog-cart  drove  away,  and  she  was  pale.  Her  simple 
and  easily  disturbed  brain  was  in  a  whirl.  She  could  scarcely 
remember  what  she  had  heard,  and  could  not  in  the  least  com 
prehend  what  it  had  seemed  intended  to  imply,  except  that 
there  had  been  concealed  in  the  suggestions  some  disparage 
ment  of  her  best  beloved. 

Singular  as  it  was  that  Pearson  should  return  without  being 
summoned,  when  she  turned  m$  found  that  he  mysteriously 


436  T.  TEMBAEOM 

stood  inside  the  threshold  again,  as  if  she  had  called  him,  she 
felt  a  great  sense  of  relief. 

"  Pearson,"  she  faltered,  "  I  am  rather  upset  by  certain 
things  which  Captain  Palliser  has  said.  I  am  afraid  I  do  not 
understand." 

She  looked  at  him  helplessly,  not  knowing  what  more  to 
say.  She  wished  extremely  that  she  could  think  of  something 
definite. 

The  masterly  finish  of  Pearson's  reply  lay  in  its  neatly  re 
strained  hint  of  unobtrusively  perceptive  sympathy. 

"  Yes,  Miss.  I  was  afraid  so.  Which  is  why  I  took  the 
liberty  of  stepping  into  the  room  again.  I  myself  do  not  under 
stand,  but  of  course  I  do  not  expect  to.  If  I  may  be  so  bold 
as  to  say  it,  Miss,  whatever  we  don't  understand,  we  both 
understand  Mr.  Temple  Barholm.  My  instructions  were  to 
remind  you,  Miss,  that  everything  would  be  all  right." 

Miss  Alicia  took  up  her  letter  from  the  table  where  she  had 
laid  it  down. 

"  Thank  you,  Pearson,"  she  said,  her  forehead  beginning  to 
clear  itself  a  little.  "  Of  course,  of  course.  I  ought  not  to  — 
He  told  me  not  to  —  get  rattled,"  she  added  with  plaintive 
ingenuousness,  "  and  I  ought  not  to,  above  all  things." 

"  Yes,  Miss.    It  is  most  important  that  you  should  not." 


CHAPTEK  XXXV 


HE  story  of  the  adventures,  experiences, 
and  journeyings  of  Mr.  Joseph  Hutchin- 
son,  his  daughter,  and  the  invention,  if 
related  in  detail,  would  prove  reading  of 
interest;  but  as  this  is  merely  a  study  of 
the  manner  in  which  the  untrained  char 
acteristics  and  varied  limitations  of  one 
man  adjusted  or  failed  to  adjust  them 
selves  to  incongruous  surroundings  and 
totally  unprepared-f  or  circumstances,  such 
details,  whatsoever  their  potential  pic- 
turesqueness,  can  be  touched  upon  but 
lightly.  No  new  idea  of  value  to  the 
world  of  practical  requirements  is  pre 
sented  to  the  public  at  large  without  the  waking  of  many 
sleeping  dogs,  and  the  stirring  of  many  snapping  fish,  floating 
with  open  ears  and  eyes  in  many  pools.  An  uneducated, 
blustering,  obstinate  man  of  one  idea,  having  resentfully  borne 
discouragement  and  wounded  egotism  for  years,  and  suddenly 
confronting  immense  promise  of  success,  is  not  unlikely  to  be 
prey  easily  harpooned.  Joseph  Hutchinson's  rebound  from 
despair  to  high  and  well-founded  hope  made  of  him  exactly 
what  such  a  man  is  always  made  by  such  rebound.  The  testi 
mony  to  his  genius  and  judgment  which  acknowledgment  of 
the  value  of  his  work  implied  was  naturally,  in  his  opinion,  only 
a  proper  tribute  which  the  public  had  been  a  bull-headed  fool 
not  to  lay  at  his  feet  years  before.  So  much  time  lost,  and  so 
much  money  for  it,  as  well  as  for  him,  and  served  'em  all 
damned  well  right,  he  said.  If  Temple  Barholm  hadn't  come 
into  his  money,  and  had  n't  had  more  sense  than  the  rest  of 
them,  where  would  they  all  have  been?  Perhaps  they'd  never 

437 


438  T.  TEMBAKOM 

have  had  the  benefit  of  the  thing  he  'd  been  telling  them  about 
for  years.  He  prided  himself  immensely  on  the  possession  of 
a  business  shrewdness  which  was  an  absolute  defense  against 
any  desire  on  the  part  of  the  iniquitous  to  overreach  him.  He 
believed  it  to  be  a  peculiarly  Lancashire  characteristic,  and  kept 
it  in  view  constantly. 

"  Lancashire 's  not  easy  to  do/'  he  would  say  hilariously. 
"Them  that  can  do  a  Lancashire  chap  has  got  to  look  out 
that  they  get  up  early  in  the  morning  and  don't  go  to  bed  till 
late." 

Smooth-mannered  and  astute  men  of  business  who  knew  how 
to  make  a  man  talk  were  given  diffuse  and  loud-voiced  ex 
planations  of  his  methods  and  long-unacknowledged  merits  and 
characteristics.  His  life,  his  morals,  and  his  training,  or  rather 
lack  of  it,  were  laid  before  them  as  examples  of  what  a  man 
might  work  himself  up  to  if  "  he  had  it  in  him."  Education 
did  n't  do  it.  He  had  never  been  to  naught  but  a  village  school, 
where  he  'd  picked  up  precious  little  but  the  three  E's.  It  had 
to  be  born  in  a  man.  Look  at  him!  His  invention  promised 
to  bring  him  in  a  fortune  like  a  duke's,  if  he  managed  it  right 
and  kept  his  eyes  open  for  sharpers.  This  company  and  that 
company  were  after  him,  but  Lancashire  did  n't  snap  up  things 
without  going  into  'em,  and  under  'em,  and  through  'em,  for 
the  matter  of  that. 

The  well-mannered  gentlemen  of  business  stimulated  him 
greatly  by  their  appreciative  attention.  He  sometimes  lost  his 
head  a  trifle  and  almost  bullied  them,  but  they  did  not  seem 
to  mind  it.  Their  apparently  old-time  knowledge  of  and  re 
spect  for  Lancashire  business  sagacity  seemed  invariably  a 
marked  thing.  Men  of  genius  and  powerful  character  com 
bined  with  practical  shrewdness  of  outlook  they  intimated,  were 
of  enormous  value  to  the  business  world.  They  were  to  be 
counted  upon  as  important  factors.  They  could  see  and  deal 
with  both  sides  of  a  proposal  as  those  of  weaker  mind  could  not. 

"That  they  can,"  Hutchinson  would  admit,  rolling  about  in 
his  chair  and  thrusting  his  hands  in  his  pockets.  "  They  've 
got  some  bottom  to  stand  on."  And  he  would  feel  amenable 
to  reason. 


T.   TEMBAROM  439 

Little  Ann  found  her  duties  and  responsibilities  increasing 
daily.  Many  persons  seemed  to  think  it  necessary  to  come  and 
talk  business,  and  father  had  so  much  to  think  of  and  reason 
out,  so  that  he  could  be  sure  that  he  did  n't  make  any  mistakes. 
In  a  quiet,  remote,  and  darkened  corner  of  her  mind,  in  which 
were  stored  all  such  things  as  it  was  well  to  say  little  or  nothing 
about,  there  was  discreetly  kept  for  reference  the  secretly 
acquired  knowledge  that  father  did  not  know  so  much  about 
business  ways  and  business  people  as  he  thought  he  did. 
Mother  had  learned  this  somewhat  important  fact,  and  had 
secluded  it  in  her  own  private  mental  store-room  with  much 
affectionate  delicacy. 

"  Father  's  a  great  man  and  a  good  man,  Ann  love,"  she  had 
confided  to  her,  choosing  an  occasion  when  her  husband  was 
a  hundred  miles  away,  "  and  he  is  right-down  Lancashire  in 
his  clever  way  of  seeing  through  people  that  think  themselves 
sharp;  but  when  a  man  is  a  genius  and  noble-minded  he  some 
times  can't  see  the  right  people's  faults  and  wickedness.  He 
thinks  they  mean  as  honest  as  he  does.  And  there 's  times 
when  he  may  get  taken  in  if  some  one,  perhaps  not  half  as 
clever  as  he  is,  does  n't  look  after  him.  When  the  invention  's 
taken  up,  and  everybody's  running  after  him  to  try  to  cheat 
him  out  of  his  rights,  if  I  'm  not  there,  Ann,  you  must  just 
keep  with  him  and  watch  every  minute.  I  've  seen  these  sharp, 
tricky  ones  right-down  flinch  and  quail  when  there  was  a  nice, 
quiet-behaved  woman  in  the  room,  and  she  just  fixed  her  eye 
steady  and  clear-like  on  them,  and  showed  she  'd  took  in  every 
word"  and  was  like  to  remember.  You  know  what  I  mean,  Ann ; 
you've  got  that  look  in  your  own  eye." 

She  had.  The  various  persons  who  interviewed  Mr.  Hutchin- 
son  became  familiar  with  the  fact  that  he  had  an  unusual 
intimacy  with  and  affection  for  his  daughter.  She  was  present 
on  all  occasions.  If  she  had  not  been  such  a  quiet  and  entirely 
unobtrusive  little  thing,  she  might  have  been  an  obstacle  to 
freedom  of  expression.  But  she  seemed  a  childish,  unsophisti 
cated  creature,  who  always  had  a  book  with  her  when  she  waited 
in  an  office,  and  a  trifle  of  sewing  to  occupy  herself  with  when 
she  was  at  home.  At  first  she  so  obliterated  herself  that  she 


440  T.  TEMBAKOM 

was  scarcely  noticed;  but  in  course  of  time  it  became  observed 
by  some  that  she  was  curiously  pretty.  The  face  usually  bent 
over  her  book  or  work  was  tinted  like  a  flower,  and  she  had  quite 
magnificent  red  hair.  A  stout  old  financier  first  remarked  her 
eyes.  He  found  one  day  that  she  had  quietly  laid  her  book  on 
her  lap,  and  that  they  were  resting  upon  him  like  unflinching 
crystals  as  he  talked  to  her  father.  Their  serenity  made  him 
feel  annoyed  and  uncomfortable.  It  was  a  sort  of  recording 
serenity.  He  felt  as  though  she  would  so  clearly  remember 
every  word  he  had  said  that  she  would  be  able  to  write  it  down 
when  she  went  home;  and  he  did  not  care  to  have  it  written 
down.  So  he  began  to  wander  somewhat  in  his  argument,  and 
did  not  reach  his  conclusions. 

"  I  was  glad,  Father,  to  see  how  you  managed  that  gentle 
man  this  afternoon,"  Little  Ann  said  that  night  when  Hutchin- 
son  had  settled  himself  with  his  pipe  after  an  excellent  dinner. 

«  Eh  ?  »  he  exclaimed.     "  Eh  ?  "^ 

"  The  one,"  she  exclaimed,  "  that  thought  he  was  so  sure  he 
was  going  to  persuade  you  to  sign  that  paper.  I  do  wonder 
he  could  think  you'd  listen  to  such  a  poor  offer,  and  tie  up  so 
much.  Why,  even  I  could  see  he  was  trying  to  take  advantage, 
and  I  know  nothing  in  the  world  about  business." 

The  financier  in  question  had  been  a  brilliant  and  laudatory 
conversationalist,  and  had  so  soothed  and  exhilarated  Mr. 
Hutchinson  that  such  perils  had  beset  him  as  his  most  lurid 
imaginings  could  never  have  conceived  in  his  darkest  moments 
of  believing  that  the  entire  universe  had  ceased  all  other  occu 
pation  to  engage  in  that  of  defrauding  him  of  his  rights  and 
dues.  He  had  been  so  uplifted  by  the  admiration  of  his  genius 
so  properly  exhibited,  and  the  fluency  with  which  his  future 
fortunes  had  been  described,  that  he  had  been  huffed  when  the 
arguments  seemed  to  dwindle  away.  Little  Ann  startled  him, 
but  it  was  not  he  who  would  show  signs  of  dismay  at  the  totally 
unexpected  expression  of  adverse  opinion.  He  had  got  into 
the  habit  of  always  listening,  though  inadvertently,  as  it  were, 
to  Ann  as  he  had  inadvertently  listened  to  her  mother. 

"  Eosenthal  ?  "  he  said.     "  Are  you  talking  about  him  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  am/'  Little  Ann  answered,  smiling  approvingly  over 


T.   TEMBAEOM  441 

her  bit  of  sewing.  "  Father,  I  wish  you  'd  try  and  teach  me 
some  of  the  things  you  know  about  business.  I  've  learned  a 
little  by  just  listening  to  you  talk;  but  I  should  so  like  to  feel 
as  if  I  could  follow  you  when  you  argue.  I  do  so  enjoy  hear 
ing  you  argue.  It 's  just  an  education." 

"  Women  are  not  up  to  much  at  business/'  reflected  Hutchin- 
son.  "  If  you  'd  been  a  boy,  I  'd  have  trained  you  same  as 
I  've  trained  myself.  You  're  a  sharp  little  thing,  Ann,  but 
you  're  a  woman.  Not  but  what  a  woman 's  the  best  thing  on 
earth,"  he  added  almost  severely  in  his  conviction — "the  best 
thing  on  earth  in  her  place.  I  don't  know  what  I  'd  ever  have 
done  without  you,  Ann,  in  the  bad  times." 

He  loved  her,  blundering  old  egotist,  just  as  he  had  loved  her 
mother.  Ann  always  knew  it,  and  her  own  love  for  him 
warmed  all  the  world  about  them  both.  She  got  up  and  went 
to  him  to  kiss  him,  and  pat  him,  and  stuff  a  cushion  behind 
his  stout  back. 

"And  now  the  good  times  have  come,"  she  said,  bestowing 
on  him  two  or  three  special  little  pats  which  were  caresses  of  her 
own  invention,  "  and  people  see  what  you  are  and  always  have 
been,  as  they  ought  to  have  seen  long  ago,  I  don't  want  to 
feel  as  if  I  could  n't  keep  up  with  you  and  understand  your 
plans.  Perhaps  I  've  got  a  little  bit  of  your  cleverness,  and  you 
might  teach  me  to  use  it  in  small  ways.  I  've  got  a  good  mem 
ory  you  know,  Father  love,  and  I  might  recollect  things  people 
say  and  make  bits  of  notes  of  them  to  save  you  trouble.  And 
I  can  calculate.  I  once  got  a  copy  of  Bunyan's  ( Pilgrim's 
Progress'  for  a  prize  at  the  village  school  just  for  sums." 

The  bald  but  unacknowledged  fact  that  Mr.  Hutchinson  had 
never  exhibited  gifts  likely  to  entitle  him  to  receive  a  prize  for 
"sums"  caused  this  suggestion  to  be  one  of  some  practical 
value.  When  business  men  talked  to  him  of  per  cents.,  and 
tenth  shares  or  net  receipts,  and  expected  him  to  comprehend 
their  proportions  upon  the  spot  without  recourse  to  pencil  and 
paper,  he  felt  himself  grow  hot  and  nervous  and  red,  and  was 
secretly  terrified  lest  the  party  of  the  second  part  should  de 
tect  that  he  was  tossed  upon  seas  of  horrible  uncertainty.  T. 
Tembarom  in  the  same  situation  would  probably  have  said. 


442  T.  TEMBAEOM 

"  This  is  the  place  where  T.  T.  sits  down  a  while  to  take  breath 
and  count  things  up  on  his  fingers.  I  am  not  a  sharp  on  arith 
metic,  and  I  need  time  —  lots  of  it." 

Mr.  Hutchinson's  way  was  to  bluster  irritatedly. 

"  Aye,  aye,  I  see  that,  of  course,  plain  enough.  I  see  that." 
And  feel  himself  breaking  into  a  cold  perspiration.  "  Eh,  this 
English  climate  is  a  damp  un,"  he  would  add  when  it  became 
necessary  to  mop  his  red  forehead  somewhat  with  his  big  clean 
handkerchief. 

Therefore  he  found  it  easy  to  receive  Little  Ann's  proposition 
with  favor. 

"There's  summat  i'  that,"  he  acknowledged  graciously, 
dropping  into  Lancashire.  "  That 's  one  of  the  little  things  a 
woman  can  do  if  she's  sharp  at  figures.  Your  mother  taught 
me  that  much.  She  always  said  women  ought  to  look  after  the 
bits  of  things  as  was  too  small  for  a  man  to  bother  with." 

"  Men  have  the  big  things  to  look  after.  That 's  enough  for 
anybody,"  said  Little  Ann.  "And  they  ought  to  leave  some 
thing  for  women  to  do.  If  you  '11  just  let  me  keep  notes  for 
you  and  remember  things  and  answer  your  letters,  and  just 
make  calculations  you're  too  busy  to  attend  to,  I  should  feel 
right-down  happy,  Father." 

"  Eh ! "  he  said  relievedly,  "  tha  art  like  thy  mother." 

"That  would  make  me  happy  if  there  was  nothing  else  to 
do  it,"  said  Ann,  smoothing  his  shoulder. 

"You're  her  girl,"  he  said,  warmed  and  supported. 

"  Yes,  I  'm  her  girl,  and  I  'm  yours.  Now,  is  n't  there  some 
little  thing  I  could  begin  with?  Would  you  mind  telling  me 
if  I  was  right  in  what  I  thought  you  thought  about  Mr.  Eosen- 
thal's  offer?" 

"What  did  you  think  I  thought  about  it?"  He  was  able 
to  put  affectionate  condescension  into  the  question. 

She  went  to  her  work-basket  and  took  out  a  sheet  of  paper. 
She  came  back  and  sat  cozily  on  the  arm  of  his  chair. 

"  I  had  to  put  it  all  down  when  I  came  home,"  she  said.  "  I 
wanted  to  make  sure  I  had  n't  forgotten.  I  do  hope  I  did  n't 
make  mistakes." 

She  gave  it  to  him  to  look  at,  and  as  he  settled  himself  down 


T.  TEMBABOM  443 

to  its  careful  examination,  she  kept  her  blue  eyes  upon  him. 
She  herself  did  not  know  that  it  was  a  wonderful  little  docu 
ment  in  its  neatly  jotted  down  notes  of  the  exact  detail  most 
important  to  his  interests. 

There  were  figures,  there  were  calculations  of  profits,  there 
were  records  of  the  gist  of  his  replies,  there  were  things  Hutch- 
inson  himself  could  not  possibly  have  fished  out  of  the  jumbled 
rag-bag  of  his  uncertain  recollections. 

"  Did  I  say  that  ?  "  he  exclaimed  once. 

"Yes,  Father  love,  and  I  could  see  it  upset  him.  I  was 
watching  his  face  because  it  was  n't  a  face  I  took  to." 

Joseph  Hutchinson  began  to  chuckle  —  the  chuckle  of  a  re 
lieved  and  gratified  stout  man. 

"  Tha  kept  thy  eyes  open,  Little  Ann,"  he  said.  "  And  the 
way  tha  's  put  it  down  is  a  credit  to  thee.  And  I  '11  lay  a 
sovereign  that  tha  made  no  mistakes  in  what  tha  thought  I  was 
thinking." 

He  was  a  little  anxious  to  hear  what  it  had  been.  The 
memorandum  had  brought  him  up  with  a  slight  shock,  because 
it  showed  him  that  he  had  not  remembered  certain  points,  and 
had  passed  over  others  which  were  of  dangerous  importance. 
Ann  slipped  her  warm  arm  about  his  neck,  as  she  nearly  always 
did  when  she  sat  on  the  arm  of  his  chair  and  talked  things 
over  with  him.  She  had  never  thought,  in  fact  she  was  not 
even  aware,  that  her  soft  little  instincts  made  her  treat  him  as 
the  big,  good,  conceited,  blundering  child  nature  had  created 
him. 

"  What  I  was  seeing  all  the  time  was  the  way  you  were  taking 
in  his  trick  of  putting  whole  lots  of  things  in  that  did  n't  really 
matter,  and  leaving  out  things  that  did,"  she  explained.  "  He 
kept  talking  about  what  the  invention  would  make  in  England, 
and  how  it  would  make  it,  and  adding  up  figures  and  per  cents, 
and  royalties  until  my  head  was  buzzing  inside.  And  when  he 
thought  he  'd  got  your  mind  fixed  on  England  so  that  you  'd 
almost  forget  there  was  any  other  country  to  think  of,  he  read 
out  the  agreement  that  said  '  All  rights,'  and  he  was  silly  enough 
to  think  he  could  get  you  to  sign  it  without  reading  it  over  and 
over  yourself,  and  showing  it  to  a  clever  lawyer  that  would 


444  T.  TEMBAROM 

know  that  as  many  tricks  can  be  played  by  things  being  left 
out  of  a  paper  as  by  things  being  put  in." 

Small  beads  of  moisture  broke  out  on  the  bald  part  of  Joseph 
Hutchinson's  head.  He  had  been  first  so  flattered  and  exhil 
arated  by  the  quoting  of  large  figures,  and  then  so  flustrated 
and  embarrassed  by  his  inability  to  calculate  and  follow  argu 
ment,  and  again  so  soothed  and  elated  and  thrilled  by  his  own 
importance  in  the  scheme  and  the  honors  which  his  position  in 
certain  companies  would  heap  upon  him,  that  an  abyss  had 
yawned  before  him  of  which  he  had  been  wholly  unaware.  He 
was  not  unaware  of  it  now.  He  was  a  vainglorious,  ignorant 
man,  whose  life  had  been  spent  in  common  work  done  under 
the  supervision  of  those  who  knew  what  he  did  not  know.  He 
had  fed  himself  upon  the  comforting  belief  that  he  had  learned 
all  the  tricks  of  any  trade.  He  had  been  openly  boastful  of  his 
astuteness  and  experience,  and  yet,  as  Ann's  soft  little  voice 
went  on,  and  she  praised  his  cleverness  in  seeing  one  point  after 
another,  he  began  to  quake  within  himself  before  the  dawning 
realization  that  he  had  seen  none  of  them,  that  he  had  been 
carried  along  exactly  as  Rosenthal  had  intended  that  he  should 
be,  and  that  if  luck  had  not  intervened,  he  had  been  on  the 
brink  of  signing  his  name  to  an  agreement  that  would  have 
implied  a  score  of  concessions  he  would  have  bellowed  like  a 
bull  at  the  thought  of  making  if  he  had  known  what  he  was 
doing. 

"  Aye,  lass,"  he  gulped  out  when  he  could  speak  — "  aye,  lass, 
tha  wert  right  enow.  I  'm  glad  tha  vert  there  and  heard  it, 
and  saw  what  I  was  thinking.  I  did  n't  say  much.  I  let  the 
chap  have  rope  enow  to  hang  himself  with.  When  he  comes 
back  I  '11  give  him  a  bit  o'  my  mind  as  '11  startle  him.  It  was 
right-down  clever  of  thee  to  see  just  what  I  had  i'  my  head 
about  all  that  there  gab  about  things  as  did  n't  matter,  an'  the 
teavin'  out  them  as  did  —  thinking  I  would  n't  notice.  Many 's 
the  time  I  've  said,  '  It  is  na  so  much  what 's  put  into  a  con 
tract  as  what 's  left  out.'  I  '11  warrant  tha  'st  heard  me  say 
it  thysen." 

"  I  dare  say  I  have,"  answered  Ann,  "  and  I  dare  say  that 
was  why  it  came  into  my  mind." 


T.   TEMBAKOM  445 

"  That  was  it,"  he  answered.  "  Thy  mother  was  always 
tellin'  me  of  things  I  'd  said  that  I  'd  clean  forgot  myself." 

He  was  beginning  to  recover  his  balance  and  self-respect. 
It  would  have  been  so  like  a  Lancashire  chap  to  have  seen  and 
dealt  shrewdly  with  a  business  schemer  who  tried  to  outwit 
him  that  he  was  gradually  convinced  that  he  had  thought  all 
that  had  been  suggested,  and  had  comported  himself  with 
triumphant  though  silent  astuteness.  He  even  began  to  rub  his 
hands. 

"  I  '11  show  him,"  he  said,  "  I  '11  send  him  off  with  a  flea  in 
his  ear." 

"  If  you  '11  help  me,  I  '11  study  out  the  things  I  've  written 
down  on  this  paper,"  Ann  said,  "  and  then  I  '11  write  down  for 
you  just  the  things  you  make  up  your  mind  to  say.  It  will  be 
such  a  good  lesson  for  me,  if  you  don't  mind,  Father.  It  won't 
be  much  to  write  it  out  the  way  you  '11  say  it.  You  know  how 
you  always  feel  that  in  business  the  fewer  words  the  better,  and 
that,  however  much  a  person  deserves  it,  calling  names  and 
showing  you  're  angry  is  only  wasting  time.  One  of  the  clever 
est  things  you  ever  thought  was  that  a  thief  does  n't  mind  being 
called  one  if  he 's  got  what  he  wanted  out  of  you ;  'he  '11  only 
laugh  to  see  you  in  a  rage  when  you  can't  help  yourself.  And  if 
he  has  n't  got  what  he  wanted,  it 's  only  waste  of  strength  to 
work  yourself  up.  It 's  you  being  what  you  are  that  makes  you 
know  that  temper  is  n't  business." 

"Well,"  said  Hutchinson,  drawing  a  long  and  deep  breath, 
"  I  was  almost  hot  enough  to  have  forgot  that,  and  I  'm  glad 
you  've  reminded  me.  We  '11  go  over  that  paper  now,  Ann. 
I  'd  like  to  give  you  your  lesson  while  we  've  got  a  bit  o'  time 
to  ourselves  and  what  I  've  said  is  fresh  in  your  mind.  The 
trick  is  always  to  get  at  things  while  they're  fresh  in  your 
mind." 

The  little  daughter  with  the  red  hair  was  present  during 
Eosenthal's  next  interview  with  the  owner  of  the  invention. 
The  fellow,  he  told  himself,  had  been  thinking  matters  over, 
had  perhaps  consulted  a  lawyer ;  and  having  had  time  for  .re 
flection,  he  did  not  present  a  mass  of  mere  inflated  and  blunder 
ing  vanity  as  a  target  for  adroit  aim.  He  seemed  a  trifle  sulky, 


446  T.  TEMBAEOM 

but  he  did  not  talk  about  himself  diffusely,  and  lose  his  head 
when  he  was  smoothed  the  right  way.  He  had  a  set  of 
curiously  concise  notes  to  which  he  referred,  and  he  stuck  to 
his  points  with  a  bulldog  obstinacy  which  was  not  to  be  shaken. 
Something  had  set  him  on  a  new  tack.  The  tricks  which  could 
be  used  only  with  a  totally  ignorant  and  readily  flattered  and 
influenced  business  amateur  were  no  longer  in  order.  This  was 
baffling  and  irritating. 

The  worst  feature  of  the  situation  was  that  the  daughter  did 
not  read  a  book,  as  had  seemed  her  habit  at  other  times.  She 
sat  with  a  tablet  and  pencil  on  her  knee,  and,  still  as  unobtru 
sively  as  ever,  jotted  down  notes. 

"  Put  that  down,  Ann,"  her  father  said  to  her  more  than 
once.  "  There 's  no  objections  to  having  things  written  down, 
I  suppose  ? "  he  put  it  bluntly  to  Eosenthal.  "  I  've  got  to 
have  notes  made  when  I  'm  doing  business.  Memory 's  all  well 
enough,  but  black  and  white  's  better.  No  one  can  go  back  of 
black  and  white.  Notes  save  time." 

There  was  but  one  attitude  possible.  No  man  of  business 
could  resent  the  recording  of  his  considered  words,  but  the 
tablet  and  pencil  and  the  quietly  bent  red  head  were  extraordi 
nary  obstacles  to  the  fluidity  of  eloquence.  Eosenthal  found 
his  arguments  less  ready  and  his  methods  modifying  them 
selves.  The  outlook  narrowed  itself.  When  he  returned  to 
his  office  and  talked  the  situation  over  with  his  partner,  he  sat 
and  bit  his  nails  in  restless  irritation. 

"  Eidiculous  as  it  seems,  outrageously  ridiculous,  I  've  an 
idea,"  he  said,  "  I  \e  more  than  an  idea  that  we  have  to  count 
with  the  girl." 

"Girl?     What  girl?" 

"Daughter.  Well-behaved,  quiet  bit  of  a  thing,  who  sits  in 
a  corner  and  listens  while  she  pretends  to  sew  or  read.  I  'm 
certain  of  it.  She  's  taken  to  making  notes  now,  and  Hutchin- 
son  's  turned  stubborn.  You  need  not  laugh,  Lewis.  She 's 
in  it.  We  Ve  got  to  count  with  that  girl,  little  female  mouse 
as  she  looks." 

This  view,  which  was  first  taken  by  Eosenthal  and  passed 
on  to  his  partner,  was  in  course  of  time  passed  on  to  others  and 


T.  TEMBAEOM  44? 

gradually  accepted,  sometimes  reluctantly  and  with  much  pri 
vate  protest,  sometimes  with  amusement.  The  well-behaved 
daughter  went  with  Hutchinson  wheresoever  his  affairs  called 
him.  She  was  changeless  in  the  unobtrusiveness  of  her  de 
meanor,  which  was  always  that  of  a  dutiful  and  obedient  young 
person  who  attended  her  parent  because  he  might  desire  her 
humble  little  assistance  in  small  matters. 

"  She  'a  my  secretary,"  Hutchinson  began  to  explain,  with  a 
touch  of  swagger.  "  I  Jve  got  to  have  a  secretary,  and  I  'd 
rather  trust  my  private  business  to  my  own  daughter  than  to 
any  one  else.  It 's  safe  with  her." 

It  was  so  safe  with  her  s'teady  demureness  that  Hutchinson 
found  himself  becoming  steady  himself.  The  "  lessons  "  he  gave 
to  Little  Ann,  and  the  notes  made  as  a  result,  always  ostensibly 
for  her  own  security  and  instruction,  began  to  form  a  singularly 
firm  foundation  for  statement  and  argument.  He  began  to 
tell  himself  that  his  memory  was  improving.  Facts  were  no 
longer  jumbled  together  in  his  mind.  He  could  better  follow  a 
line  of  logical  reasoning.  He  less  often  grew  red  and  hot  and 
flustered. 

"  That 's  the  thing  I  've  said  so  often  —  that  temper  's  got 
naught  to  do  wi'  business,  and  only  upsets  a  man  when  he 
wants  all  his  wits  about  him.  It's  the  truest  thing  I  ever 
worked  out,"  he  not  infrequently  congratulated  himself.  "  If 
a  chap  can  keep  his  temper,  he  '11  be  like  to  keep  his  head  and 
drive  his  bargain.  I  see  it  plainer  every  day  o'  my  life." 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

T  was  in  the  course  of  the  "  lessons  "  that  he 
realized  that  he  had  always  argued  that  the 
best  way  to  do  business  was  to  do  it  face  to 
face  with  people.  To  stay  in  England,  and  let 
another  chap  make  your  bargains  for  you  in 
France  or  Germany  or  some  other  outlandish 
place,  where  frog-eating  foreigners  ran  loose, 
was  a  fool's  trick.  He  'd  said  it  often  enough. 
"  Get  your  eye  on  'em,  and  let  them  know  you  Jve 
got  it  on  them,  and  they'd  soon  find  out  they 
were  dealing  with  Lancashire,  and  not  with  for 
eign  knaves  and  nincompoops."  So,  when  it 
became  necessary  to  deal  with  France,  Little  Ann  packed  him 
up  neatly,  so  to  speak,  and  in  the  role  of  obedient  secretarial 
companion  took  him  to  that  country,  having  for  weeks  before 
hand  mentally  confronted  the  endless  complications  attending 
the  step.  She  knew,  in  the  first  place,  what  the  effect  of  the 
French  language  would  be  upon  his  temper:  that  it  would  pre 
sent  itself  to  him  as  a  wall  deliberately  built  by  the  entire  nation 
as  a  means  of  concealing  a  deep  duplicity  the  sole  object  of 
which  was  the  baffling,  thwarting,  and  undoing  of  Englishmen, 
from  whom  it  wished  to  wrest  their  honest  rights.  Apoplexy 
becoming  imminent,  as  a  result  of  his  impotent  rage  during 
their  first  few  days  in  Paris,  she  paid  a  private  visit  to  a  trav 
eler's  agency,  and  after  careful  inquiry  discovered  that  it  was 
not  impossible  to  secure  the  attendance  and  service  of  a  well- 
mannered  young  man  who  spoke  most  of  the  languages  employed 
by  most  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  globe.  She  even  found  that 
she  might  choose  from  a  number  of  such  persons,  and  she  there 
fore  selected  with  great  care. 

"  One  that 's  got  a  good  temper,  and  is  n't  easy  irritated," 

448 


T.   TEMBAEOM  449 

she  said  to  herself,  in  summing  up  the  aspirants,  "but  not 
one  that 's  easy-tempered  because  he 's  silly.  He  must  have 
plenty  of  common  sense  as  well  as  be  willing  to  do  what  he 's 
told." 

When  her  father  discovered  that  he  himself  had  been  con 
sidering  the  desirability  of  engaging  the  services  of  such  a  per 
son,  and  had,  indeed,  already,  in  a  way,  expressed  his  intention 
of  sending  her  to  "the  agency  chap"  to  look  him  up,  she  was 
greatly  relieved. 

"  I  can  try  to  teach  him  what  you  've  taught  me,  Father," 
she  said,  "  and  of  course  he  '11  learn  just  by  being  with  you/' 

The  assistant  engaged  was  a  hungry  young  student  who  had 
for  weeks,  through  ill  luck,  been  endeavoring  to  return  with 
some  courage  the  gaze  of  starvation,  which  had  been  staring 
him  in  the  face. 

His  name  was  Dudevant,  and  with  desperate  struggles  he 
had  educated  himself  highly,  having  cherished  literary  ambi 
tions  from  his  infancy.  At  this  juncture  it  had  become  im 
perative  that  he  should,  for  a  few  months  at  least,  obtain  food. 
Ann  had  chosen  well  by  instinct.  His  speech  had  told  her  that 
he  was  intelligent,  his  eyes  had  told  her  that  he  would  do  any 
thing  on  earth  to  earn  his  living. 

From  the  time  of  his  advent,  Joseph  Hutchinson  had  be 
come  calmer  and  had  ceased  to  be  in  peril  of  apoplectic  seizure. 
Foreign  nations  became  less  iniquitous  and  dangerous,  foreign 
languages  were  less  of  a  barrier,  easier  to  understand.  A  pleas 
ing  impression  that  through  great  facility  he  had  gained  a  fair 
practical  knowledge  of  French,  German,  and  Italian,  supported 
and  exhilarated  him  immensely. 

"  It 's  right-down  wonderful  how  a  chap  gets  to  understand 
these  fellows'  lingo  after  he 's  listened  to  it  a  bit,"  he  announced 
to  Ann.  "  I  would  n't  have  believed  it  of  myself  that  I  could 
see  into  it  as  quick  as  I  have.  I  could  n't  say  as  I  understand 
everything  they  say  just  when  they're  saying  it;  but  I  under 
stand  it  right  enough  when  I've  had  time  to  translate  like. 
If  foreigners  did  n't  talk  so  fast  and  run  their  words  one  into 
another,  and  jabber  as  if  their  mouths  was  full  of  puddin',  it  'd 
be  easier  for  them  as  is  English.  Now,  there 's  '  wee '  and 


450  T.  TEMBAROM 

'  nong.'  I  know  'em  whenever  I  hear  'em,  and  that 's  a  good 
hit  of  help." 

"  Yes,"  answered  Ann,  "  of  course  that 's  the  chief  thing 
you  want  to  know  in  business,  whether  a  person  is  going  to 
say  '  yes '  or  l  no/  " 

He  began  to  say  "wee"  and  "nong"  at  meals,  and  once 
broke  forth  "  Passy  mor  le  burr  "  in  a  tone  so  casually  Parisian 
that  Ann  was  frightened,  because  she  did  not  understand  im 
mediately,  and  also  because  she  saw  looming  up  before  her  a 
future  made  perilous  by  the  sudden  interjection  of  unexpected 
foreign  phrases  it  would  be  incumbent  upon  her  and  Dudevant 
to  comprehend  instantaneously  without  invidious  hesitation. 

"Don't  you  understand?  Pass  the  butter.  Don't  you  un 
derstand  a  bit  o'  French  like  that?"  he  exclaimed  irritatedly. 
"Buy  yourself  one  o'  these  books  full  of  easy  sentences  and 
learn  some  of  'em,  lass.  You  oughtn't  to  be  travelin'  about 
with  your  father  in  foreign  countries  and  learnin'  nothin'. 
It 's  not  every  lass  that 's  gettin'  your  advantages." 

Ann  had  not  mentioned  the  fact  that  she  spent  most  of  her 
rare  leisure  moments  in  profound  study  of  phrase-books  and 
grammars,  which  she  kept  in  her  trunk  and  gave  her  attention 
to  before  she  got  up  in  the  morning,  after  she  went  to  her  room 
at  night,  and  usually  while  she  was  dressing.  You  can  keep  a 
book  open  before  you  when  you  are  brushing  your  hair.  Dude 
vant  gave  her  a  lesson  or  so  whenever  time  allowed.  She  was 
as  quick  to  learn  as  her  father  thought  he  was,  and  she  was 
desperately  determined.  It  was  really  not  long  before  she 
understood  much  more  than  "wee  and  nong"  when  she  was 
present  at  a  business  interview. 

"You  are  a  wonderful  young  lady,"  Dudevant  said,  with 
that  well-known  yearning  in  his  eyes.  "  You  are  most  won 
derful." 

"  She 's  just  a  wonder,"  Mrs.  Bowse  and  her  boarders  had 
said.  And  the  respectful  yearning  in  the  young  Frenchman's 
eyes  and  voice  were  well  known  to  her  because  she  had  seen 
it  often  before,  and  remembered  it,  in  Jem  Bowles  and  Julius 
Steinberger.  That  this  young  man  had  without  an  hour  of 
delay  fallen  abjectly  in  love  with  her  was  a  circumstance  with 


T.  TEMBAKOM  451 

which  she  dealt  after  her  own  inimitably  kind  and  undeleterious 
method,  which  in  itself  was  an  education  to  any  amorous  youth. 

"  I  can  understand  all  you  tell  me,"  she  said  when  he  reached 
the  point  of  confiding  his  hard  past  to  her.  "  I  can  under 
stand  it  because  I  knew  some  one  who  had  to  fight  for  himself 
just  that  way,  only  perhaps  it  was  harder  because  he  was  n't 
educated  as  you  are." 

"  Did  he  —  confide  in  you  ?  "  Dudevant  ventured,  with  deli 
cate  hesitation.  "You  are  so  kind  I  am  sure  he  did,  Made 
moiselle." 

"  He  told  me  about  it  because  he  knew  I  wanted  to  hear," 
she  answered.  "  I  was  very  fond  of  him,"  she  added,  and  her 
kind  gravity  was  quite  unshaded  by  any  embarrassment.  "  I 
was  right-down  fond  of  him." 

His  emotion  rendered  him  for  a  moment  indiscreet,  to  her 
immediate  realization  and  regret,  as  was  evident  by  his  break 
ing  off  in  the  midst  of  his  question. 

"  And  now  —  are  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  always  shall  be,  Mr.  Dudevant." 

His  adoration  naturally  only  deepened  itself  as  all  hope  at 
once  receded,  as  it  could  not  but  recede  before  the  absolute 
pellucid  truth  of  her. 

"  However  much  he  likes  me,  he  will  get  over  it  in  time. 
People  do,  when  they  know  how  things  stand,"  she  was  think 
ing,  with  maternal  sympathy. 

It  did  him  no  bitter  harm  to  help  her  with  her  efforts  at 
learning  what  she  most  needed,  and  he  found  her  intelligence 
and  modest  power  of  concentration  remarkable.  A  singularly 
clear  knowledge  of  her  own  specialized  requirements  was  a 
practical  background  to  them  both.  She  had  no  desire  to  shine ; 
she  was  merely  steadily  bent  on  acquiring  as  immediately  as 
possible  a  comprehension  of  nouns,  verbs,  and  phrases  that 
would  be  useful  to  her  father.  The  manner  in  which  she  ap 
plied  herself,  and  assimilated  what  it  was  her  quietly  fixed  in 
tention  to  assimilate,  bespoke  her  possession  of  a  brain  the 
powers  of  which  being  concentrated  on  large  affairs  might  have 
accomplished  almost  startling  results.  There  was,  however, 
nothing  startling  in  her  intentions,  and  ambition  did  not  touch 


452  T.   TEMBAROM 

her.  Yet,  as  she  went  with  Hutchinson  from  one  country  to 
another,  more  than  one  man  of  affairs  had  it  borne  in  upon 
him  that  her  young  slimness  and  her  silence  represented  an 
unanticipated  knowledge  of  points  under  discussion  which  might 
wisely  be  considered  as  a  factor  in  all  decisions  for  or  against. 
To  realize  that  a  soft-cheeked,  child-eyed  girl  was  an  element  to 
regard  privately  in  discussions  connected  with  the  sale  of,  or  the 
royalties  paid  on,  a  valuable  patent  appeared  in  some  minds 
to  be  a  situation  not  without  flavor.  She  was  the  kind  of  little 
person  a  man  naturally  made  love  to,  and  a  girl  who  was  made 
love  to  in  a  clever  manner  frequently  became  amenable  to  reason, 
and  might  be  persuaded  to  use  her  influence  in  the  direction 
most  desired.  But  such  male  financiers  as  began  with  this  idea 
discovered  that  they  had  been  led  into  errors  of  judgment 
through  lack  of  familiarity  with  the  variations  of  type.  One 
personable  young  man  of  title,  who  had  just  been  disappointed 
in  a  desirable  marriage  with  a  fortune,  being  made  aware  that 
the  invention  was  likely  to  arrive  at  amazing  results,  was  suf 
ficiently  rash  to  approach  Mr.  Hutchinson  with  formal  pro 
posals.  Having  a  truly  British  respect  for  the  lofty  in  place, 
and  not  being  sufficiently  familiar  with  titled  personages  to 
discriminate  swiftly  between  the  large  and  the  small,  Joseph 
Hutchinson  was  somewhat  unduly  elated. 

"  The  chap  's  a  count,  lass/'  he  said.  "  Tha  Vd  go  back 
to  Manchester  a  countess." 

"  I  Jve  heard  they  're  nearly  all  counts  in  these  countries," 
commented  Ann.  "  And  there 's  countesses  that  have  to  do 
their  own  washing,  in  a  manner  of  speaking.  You  send  him 
to  me,  Father." 

When  the  young  man  came,  and  compared  the  fine  little  nose 
of  Miss  Hutchinson  with  the  large  and  bony  structure  dominat 
ing  the  countenance  of  the  German  heiress  he  had  lost,  also 
when  he  gazed  into  the  clearness  of  the  infantile  blue  eyes,  his 
spirits  rose.  He  felt  himself  en  veine;  he  was  equal  to  attacking 
the  situation.  He  felt  that  he  approached  it  with  alluring 
and  chivalric  delicacy.  He  almost  believed  all  that  he  said. 

But  the  pellucid  blueness  of  the  gaze  that  met  his  was  con- 
fusingly  unstirred  by  any  shade  of  suitable  timidity  or  emotion. 


T.  TEMBAEOM  453 

There  was  something  in  the  lovely,  sedate  little  creature,  some 
thing  so  undisturbed  and  matter  of  fact,  that  it  frightened  him, 
because  he  suddenly  felt  like  a  fool  whose  folly  had  been  found 
out. 

"  That 's  downright  silly,"  remarked  Little  Ann,  not  allow 
ing  him  to  escape  from  her  glance,  which  unhesitatingly 
summed  up  him  and  his  situation.  "  And  you  know  it  is. 
You  don't  know  anything  about  me,  and  you  would  n't  like  me 
if  you  did.  And  I  shouldn't  like  you.  We're  too  different. 
Please  go  away,  and  don't  say  anything  more  about  it.  I 
should  n't  have  patience  to  talk  it  over." 

"  Father,"  she  said  that  night,  "  if  ever  I  get  married  at  all, 
there 's  only  one  person  I  'm  going  to  marry.  You  know  that." 
And  she  would  say  no  more. 

By  the  time  they  returned  to  England,  the  placing  of  the 
invention  in  divers  countries  had  been  arranged  in  a  manner 
which  gave  assurance  of  a  fortune  for  its  owners  on  a  founda 
tion  not  likely  to  have  established  itself  in  more  adverse  cir 
cumstances.  Mr.  Hutchinson  had  really  driven  some  admirable 
bargains,  and  had  secured  advantages  which  to  his  last  hour 
he  would  believe  could  have  been  achieved  only  by  Lancashire 
shrewdness  and  Lancashire  ability  to  "  see  as  far  through  a 
mile-stone  as  most  chaps,  an'  a  bit  farther."  The  way  in  which 
he  had  never  allowed  himself  to  be  "  done  "  caused  him  at  times 
to  chuckle  himself  almost  purple  with  self-congratulation. 

"  They  got  to  know  what  they  was  dealing  with,  them  chaps. 
They  was  sharp,  but  Joe  was  a  bit  sharper,"  he  would 
say. 

They  found  letters  waiting  for  them  when  they  reached 
London. 

"  There 's  one  fro'  thy  grandmother,"  Hutchinson  said,  in 
dealing  out  the  package.  "  She 's  written  to  thee  pretty  steady 
for  an  old  un." 

This  was  true.  Letters  from  her  had  followed  them  from 
one  place  to  another.  This  was  a  thick  one  in  an  envelop  of 
good  size. 

"  Are  n't  tha  going  to  read  it  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Not  till  you  've  had  your  dinner,  Father.     You  've  had  a 


454  T.   TEMBAROM 

long  day  of  it  with  that  channel  at  the  end.  I  want  to  see  you 
comfortable  with  your  pipe." 

The  hotel  was  a  good  one,  and  the  dinner  was  good.  Joseph 
Hutchinson  enjoyed  it  with  the  appetite  of  a  robust  man  who 
has  had  time  to  get  over  a  not  too  pleasant  crossing.  When 
he  had  settled  down  into  a  stout  easy-chair  with  the  pipe,  he 
drew  a  long  and  comfortable  breath  as  he  looked  about  the  room. 

"  Eh,  Ann,  lass,"  he  said,  "  thy  mother  'd  be  fine  an'  set  up 
if  she  could  see  aw  this.  Us  having  the  best  that's  to  be  had, 
an'  knowin'  we  can  have  it  to  the  end  of  our  lives,  that 's  what 
it 's  come  to,  tha  knows.  No  more  third-class  railway-carriages 
for  you  and  me.  No  more  '  commercial }  an'  '  temperance ' 
hotels.  Th'  first  cut 's  what  we  can  have  —  th'  upper  cut. 
Eh,  eh,  but  it 's  a  good  day  for  a  man  when  he 's  begun  to  be 
appreciated  as  he  should  be." 

"It's  a  good  day  for  those  that  love  him,"  said  Little  Ann- 
"  And  I  dare  say  mother  knows  every  bit  about  it." 

"  I  dare  say  she  does,"  admitted  Hutchinson,  with  tender 
lenience.  "  She  was  one  o'  them  as  believed  that  way.  And 
I  never  knowed  her  to  be  wrong  in  aught  else,  so  I  'm  ready 
to  give  in  as  she  was  reet  about  that.  Good  lass  she  was, 
good  lass." 

He  had  fallen  into  a  contented  and  utterly  comfortable  doze 
in  his  chair  when  Ann  sat  down  to  read  her  grandmother's  let 
ter.  The  old  woman  always  wrote  at  length,  giving  many  de 
tails  and  recording  village  events  with  shrewd  realistic  touches. 
Throughout  their  journey  ings,  Ann  had  been  followed  by  a 
record  of  the  estate  and  neighborhood  of  Temple  Barholm 
which  had  lacked  nothing  of  atmosphere.  She  had  known  what 
the  new  lord  of  the  manor  did,  what  people  said,  what  the  at 
titude  of  the  gentry  had  become;  that  the  visit  of  the  Countess 
of  Mallowe  and  her  daughter  had  extended  itself  until  curiosity 
and  amusement  had  ceased  to  comment,  and  passively  awaited 
results.  She  had  heard  of  Miss  Alicia  and  her  reincarnation, 
and  knew  much  of  the  story  of  the  Duke  of  Stone,  whose  repu 
tation  as  a  "  dommed  clever  owd  chap "  had  earned  for  him 
a  sort  of  awed  popularity.  There  had  been  many  "ladies." 


T.  TEMBAEOM  455 

The  new  Temple  Barholm  had  boldly  sought  them  out  and 
faced  them  in  their  strongholds  with  the  manner  of  one  who 
would  confront  the  worst  and  who  revealed  no  tendency  to 
flinch.  The  one  at  Stone  Hover  with  the  "pretty  color"  and 
the  one  with  the  dimples  had  appeared  frequently  upon  the 
scene.  Then  there  had  been  Lady  Joan  Fayre,  who  had  lived 
at  his  elbow,  sitting  at  his  table,  driving  in  his  carriages  with 
the  air  of  cold  aloofness  which  the  cottagers  "  could  na  abide 
an'  had  no  patience  wi'."  She  had  sometimes  sat  and  wondered 
and  wondered  about  things,  and  sometimes  had  flushed  daisy- 
red  instead  of  daisy-pink;  and  sometimes  she  had  turned  rather 
pale  and  closed  her  soft  mouth  firmly.  But,  though  she  had 
written  twice  a  week  to  her  grandmother,  she  had  recorded 
principally  the  successes  and  complexities  of  the  invention,  and 
had  asked  very  few  questions.  Old  Mrs.  Hutchinson  would  tell 
her  all  she  must  know,  and  her  choice  of  revelation  would  be 
made  with  a  far-sightedness  which  needed  no  stimulus  of  ques 
tioning.  The  letter  she  had  found  awaiting  her  had  been  long 
on  its  way,  having  missed  her  at  point  after  point  and  followed 
her  at  last  to  London.  It  looked  and  felt  thick  and  solid  in 
its  envelop.  Little  Ann  opened  it,  stirred  by  the  suggestion 
of  quickened  pulse-beats  with  which  she  had  become  familiar. 
As  she  bent  over  it  she  looked  sweetly  flushed  and  warmed. 

Joseph  Hutchinson's  doze  had  almost  deepened  into  sleep 
when  he  was  awakened  by  the  touch  of  her  hand  on  his 
shoulder.  She  was  standing  by  him,  holding  some  sheets  of 
her  grandmother's  letter,  and  several  other  sheets  were  lying  on 
the  table.  Something  had  occurred  which  had  changed  her 
quiet  look. 

"  Has  aught  happened  to  your  grandmother  ?  "  he  asked. 

"No,  Father,  but  this  letter  that's  been  following  me  from 
one  place  to  another  has  got  some  queer  news  in  it." 

"What's  up,  lass?     Tha  looks  as  if  summat  was  up." 

"The  thing  that's  happened  has  given  me  a  great  deal  to 
think  of,"  was  her  answer.  "  It 's  about  Mr.  Temple  Barholm 
and  Mr.  Strangeways." 


456  T.  TEMBAROM 

He  became  wide-awake  at  once,  sitting  up  and  turning  in 
his  chair  in  testy  anxiety. 

"  Now,  now,"  he  exclaimed,  "  I  hope  that  cracked  chap 's 
not  gone  out  an*  out  mad  an'  done  some  mischief.  I  towd 
Temple  Barholm  it  was  a  foolish  thing  to  do,  taking  all  that 
trouble  about  him.  Has  he  set  fire  to  th'  house  or  has  he 
knocked  th'  poor  lad  on  th'  head?" 

"  No,  he  has  n't,  Father.  He 's  disappeared,  and  Mr.  Temple 
Barholm  's  disappeared,  too." 

"  Disappeared  ?  "  Hutchinson  almost  shouted.  "  What  for, 
i'  the  Lord's  name  ?  " 

"Nobody  knows  for  certain,  and  people  are  talking  wild. 
The  village  is  all  upset,  and  all  sorts  of  silly  things  are  being 
said." 

"What  sort  o'  things?" 

"You  know  what  servants  at  big  houses  are  —  how  they 
hear  bits  of  talk  and  make  much  of  it,"  she  explained. 
"  They  've  been  curious  and  chattering  among  themselves  about 
Mr.  Strangeways  from  the  first.  It  was  Burrill  that  said  he 
believed  he  was  some  relation  that  was  being  hid  away  for  some 
good  reason.  One  night  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  and  Captain 
Palliser  were  having  a  long  talk  together,  and  Burrill  was 
about  — " 

"  Aye,  he  'd  be  about  if  he  thought  there  was  a  chance  of 
him  hearing  summat  as  was  none  of  his  business,"  jerked  out 
Hutchinson,  irately. 

"  They  were  talking  about  Mr.  Strangeways,  and  Burrill 
heard  Captain  Palliser  getting  angry;  and  as  he  stepped  near 
the  door  he  heard  him  say  out  loud  that  he  could  swear  in  any 
court  of  justice  that  the  man  he  had  seen  at  the  west  room  win 
dow  —  it 's  a  startling  thing,  Father  —  was  Mr.  James  Temple 
Barholm."  For  the  moment  her  face  was  pale. 

Hereupon  Hutchinson  sprang  up. 

"  What !  "  His  second  shout  was  louder  than  his  first.  "  Th' 
liar !  Th'  chap 's  dead,  an'  he  knows  it.  Th'  dommed  mis 
chief -makin'  liar ! " 

Her  eyes  were  clear  and  speculatively  thoughtful,  notwith 
standing  her  lack  of  color. 


T.  TEMBAEOM  457 

"There  have  been  people  that  have  been  thought  dead  that 
have  come  back  to  their  friends  alive.  It  'a  happened  many  a 
time,"  she  said.  "  It  would  n't  be  so  strange  for  a  man  that 
had  no  friends  to  be  lost  in  a  wild,  far-off  place  where  there  was 
neither  law  nor  order,  and  where  every  man  was  fighting  for 
his  own  life  and  the  gold  he  was  mad  after.  Particularly  a 
man  that  was  shamed  and  desperate  and  wanted  to  hide  himself. 
And,  most  of  all,  it  would  be  easy,  if  he  was  like  Mr.  Strange- 
ways,  and  could  n't  remember,  and  had  lost  himself." 

As  her  father  listened,  the  angry  redness  of  his  countenance 
moderated  its  hue.  His  eyes  gradually  began  to  question  and 
his  under  jaw  fell  slightly. 

"  Si'  thee,  lass,"  he  broke  out  huskily,  "  does  that  mean  to 
say  tha  believes  it?" 

"  It 's  not  often  you  can  believe  what  you  don't  know,"  she 
answered.  "  I  don't  know  anything  about  it.  There  's  just  one 
thing  I  believe,  because  I  Tcnow  it.  I  believe  what  grandmother 
does.  Eead  that." 

She  handed  him  the  final  sheet  of  old  Mrs.  Hutchinson's 
letter.  It  was  written  with  very  black  ink  and  in  an  astonish 
ingly  bold  and  clear  hand.  It  was  easy  to  read  the  sentences 
with  which  she  ended. 

There 's  a  lot  said.  There 's  always  more  saying  than  doing. 
But  it 's  right-down  funny  to  see  how  the  lad  has  made  hard 
and  fast  friends  just  going  about  in  his  queer  way,  and  no  one 
knowing  how  he  did  it.  I  like  him  myself.  He 's  one  of 
those  you  needn't  ask  questions  about.  If  there's  anything 
said  that  is  n't  to  his  credit,  it 's  not  true.  There 's  no  if  s,  buts, 
or  ands  about  that,  Ann. 

Little  Ann  herself  read  the  words  as  her  father  read  them. 

"  That 's  the  thing  I  believe,  because  I  know  it,"  was  all  she 
said. 

"  It 's  the  thing  I  'd  swear  to  mysel'/'  her  father  answered 
bluffly.  "But,  by  Judd— " 

She  gave  him  a  little  push  and  spoke  to  him  in  homely  Lan 
cashire  phrasing,  and  with  some  soft  unsteadiness  of  voice. 


458  T.  TEMBAEOM 

"  Sit  thee  down,  Father  love/'  she  said,  "  and  let  me  sit  OD 
thy  knee." 

He  sat  down  with  emotional  readiness,  and  she  sat  on  his 
stout  knee  like  a  child.  It  was  a  thing  she  did  in  tender  or 
troubled  moments  as  much  in  these  days  as  she  had  done  when 
she  was  six  or  seven.  Her  little  lightness  and  soft  young  ways 
made  it  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world,  as  well  as  the 
prettiest.  She  had  always  sat  on  his  knee  in  the  hours  when 
he  had  been  most  discouraged  over  the  invention.  She  had 
known  it  made  him  feel  as  though  he  were  taking  care  of  her, 
and  as  though  she  depended  utterly  on  him  to  steady  the  foun 
dations  of  her  world.  What  could  such  a  little  bit  of  a  lass  do 
without  "a  father"? 

"It's  upset  thee,  lass,"  he  said.     "It's  upset  thee." 

He  saw  her  slim  hands  curl  themselves  into  small,  firm  fists 
as  they  rested  on  her  lap. 

"  I  can't  bear  to  think  that  ill  can  be  said  of  him,  even  by  a 
wastrel  like  Captain  Palliser,"  she  said.  "  He  'a  mine." 

It  made  him  fumble  caressingly  at  her  big  knot  of  soft  red 
hair. 

"  Thine,  is  he  ?  "  he  said.  "  Thine !  Eh,  but  tha  did  say  that 
just  like  thy  mother  would  ha'  said  it;  tha  brings  the  heart 
i'  my  throat  now  and  again.  That  chap's  i'  luck,  I  can  tell 
him — 'Same  as  I  was  once." 

"  He 's  mine  now,  whatever  happens,"  she  went  on,  with  a 
firmness  which  no  skeptic  would  have  squandered  time  in  the 
folly  of  hoping  to  shake.  "  He 's  done  what  I  told  him  to  do, 
and  it's  me  he  wants.  He's  found  out  for  himself,  and  so 
have  I.  He  can  have  me  the  minute  he  wants  me  —  the  very 
minute." 

"He  can?"  said  Hutchinson.  "That  settles  it.  I  believe 
tha'd  rather  take  him  when  he  was  i'  trouble  than  when  he 
was  out  of  it.  Same  as  tha  'd  rather  take  him  i'  a  flat  in  Harlem 
on  fifteen  dollar  a  week  than  on  fifteen  hundred." 

"Yes,  Father,  I  would.  It'd  give  me  more  to  do  for 
him." 

"  Eh,  eh,"  he  grunted  tenderly,  "  thy  mother  again.  I  used 
to  tell  her  as  the  only  thing  she  had  agen  me  was  that  I  never 


T.  TEMBAROM  459 

got  i'  jail  so  she  could  get  me  out  an'  stand  up  for  me  after  it. 
There 's  only  one  thing  worrits  me  a  bit :  I  wish  the  lad  had  n't 
gone  away." 

"  I  've  thought  that  out,  though  I  've  not  had  much  time  to 
reason  about  things,"  said  Little  Ann.  "  If  he 's  gone  away, 
he  's  gone  to  get  something ;  and  whatever  it  happens  to  be,  he  '11 
be  likely  to  bring  it  back  with  him,  Father." 


CHAPTER  XXXVH 

LD  Mrs.  Hutchinson's  letter  had  supplied 
much  detail,  but  when  her  son  and  grand 
daughter  arrived  in  the  village  of  Temple 
Barholm  they  heard  much  more,  the  greater 
part  of  it  not  in  the  least  to  be  relied  upon. 
"The  most  of  it's  lies,  as  folks  enjoys 
theirsels  pretendin'  to  believe,"  the  grand 
mother  commented.  "It's  servants'-hall 
talk  and  cottage  gossip,  and  plenty  made  itself 
up  out  o'  beer  drunk  in  th'  tap-room  at 
th'  Wool  Park.  In  a  place  where  naught 
much  happens,  people  get  into  th'  way  'o  springin'  on 
a  bit  o'  news,  and  shakin'  and  worryin'  it  like  a  terrier  does  a 
rat  It's  nature.  That  lad's  given  'em  lots  to  talk  about 
ever  since  he  coom.  He 's  been  a  blessin'  to  'em.  If  he  'd  been 
gentry,  he  'd  not  ha'  been  nigh  as  lively.  Th'  village  lads  tries 
to  talk  through  their  noses  like  him.  Little  Tummas  Hibble- 
thwaite  does  it  i'  broad  Lancashire." 

The  only  facts  fairly  authenticated  were  that  the  mysterious 
stranger  had  been  taken  away  very  late  one  night,  some  time 
before  the  interview  between  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  and  Captain 
Palliser,  of  which  Bun-ill  knew  so  much  because  he  had  "  hap 
pened  to  be  about.19  When  a  domestic  magnate  of  BurrilFs 
type  " happens  to  be  about"  at  a  crisis,  he  is  not  unlikely  to 
hear  a  great  deaL  Burrill,  it  was  believed,  knew  much  more 
than  he  deigned  to  make  public.  The  entire  truth  was  that 
Captain  Palliser  himself,  in  one  of  his  hasty  appearances  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Temple  Barholm,  had  bestowed  a  few 
words  of  cold  caution  on  him. 

**  Don't  talk  too  much,"  he  had  said.  "  Proof  is  required  be 
fore  talk  is  safe.  The  American  was  sharp  enough  to  say  that 
to  me  himpelf.  He  was  sharp  enough,  too,  to  keep  his  man 

460 


T.  TEMBAROM  461 

hidden.  I  was  the  only  person  that  saw  him  who  could  have 
recognized  him,  and  I  saw  him  by  chance.  Palford  &  Grimhy 
require  proof.  We  are  in  search  of  it.  Servants  will  talk;  but 
if  you  don't  want  to  run  the  risk  of  getting  yourself  into  trouble, 
don't  make  absolute  statements." 

This  had  been  a  disappointment  to  Burrill,  who  had  seen 
himself  developing  in  magnitude;  but  he  was  a  timid  man,  and 
therefore  felt  it  wise  to  convey  his  knowledge  merely  through 
the  conviction  carried  by  a  dignified  silence  after  his  first  in 
discreet  revelation  of  having  "  happened  to  be  about "  had  been 
made.  It  would  have  been  some  solace  to  him  to  intimate  to 
Miss  Alicia  by  his  bearing  and  the  manner  of  his  services 
that  she  had  been  discovered,  so  to  speak,  in  the  character  of 
a  sort  of  accomplice ;  that  her  position  was  a  perilously  uncertain 
one,  which  would  probably  end  in  utter  downfall,  leaving  her 
in  her  old  and  proper  place  as  an  elderly,  insignificant,  and 
unattractive  poor  relation,  without  a  feature  to  recommend  her. 
But  being,  as  before  remarked,  a  timid  man,  and  recalling  the 
interview  between  himself  and  his  employer  held  outside  the 
dining-room  door,  and  having  also  a  disturbing  memory  of  the 
sharp,  cool,  boyish  eye  and  the  tone  of  the  casual  remark  that 
he  had  "  a  head  on  his  shoulders  "  and  that  it  was  "  up  to  him 
to  make  the  others  understand/'  it  seemed  as  well  to  restrain 
his  inclinations  until  the  proof  Palford  &  Grimby  required 
was  forthcoming. 

It  was  perhaps  the  moderate  and  precautionary  attitude  of 
Palford  &  Grimby,  during  their  first  somewhat  startled  though 
reserved  interview  with  Captain  Palliser,  which  had  prevented 
the  vaguely  wild  rumors  from  being  regarded  as  more  than 
villagers'  exaggerated  talk  among  themselves.  The  "gentry/* 
indeed,  knew  much  less  of  the  cottagers  than  the  cottagers  knew 
of  the  gentry;  consequently  events  furnishing  much  excitement 
among  the  village  people  not  infrequently  remained  unheard-of 
by  those  in  the  class  above  them.  A  story  less  incredible  might 
have  been  more  considered ;  but  the  highly  colored  reasons  given 
for  the  absence  of  the  owner  of  Temple  Barholm  would,  if 
heard  of,  have  been  more  than  likely  to  be  received  and  passed 
over  with  a  smile. 


4€8  T.  TEMBABOM 


The  TMinigr  of  Mr.  Palford  and  also  of  Mr.  Grimby  during 
the  deliberately  mimglndrainafiff  MW!  carefully  connected  rela 
tion  of  Captain  PaIIiser*s  singular  story,  was  that  of  professional 
gentlemen  who  for  reasons  of  good  breeding  were  engaged  in  re- 
stnining  outward  expression  of  conviction  that  they  were  lis 
tening  to  utter  nonsense.  Palliser  himself  was  aware  of  this, 
and  upon  the  whole  did  not  wonder  at  it  in  entirely  unimagi 
native  persons  of  extremely  sober  fires.  In  fact,  he  had  begun  by 
giving  them  some  ••ruing  as  to  what  they  might  expect  in  the 

WaV  of  mi"ffnnfrfffi^ff- 

"Yon  wiQ,  no  doubt,  think  what  I  am  about  to  tell  yon 
absurd  and  incredible/'  he  had  prefaced  his  statements.  "I 
thought  the  same  myself  when  my  first  suspicions  were  aroused. 
I  was,  in  fact,  inclined  to  laugh  at  my  own  idea  until  one  link 
connected  itself  with  another.9 

KeHher  Mr.  Grimby  nor  Mr.  Palford  was  inclined  to  laugh. 
On  the  contrary,  they  were  extremely  grave,  and  continued  to 
find  it  necessary  to  restrain  their  united  tendency  to  indicate 
facially  that  the  tiling  must  be  nonsense.  It  transcended  all 
bounds,  as  it  were.  The  delicacy  with  which  they  managed  to 
convey  this  did  them  much  credit.  This  delicacy  was  equaled 
by  the  moderation  with  which  Captain  Palliser  drew  their  at 
tention  to  the  fact  that  it  was  not  the  thing  likely-to-happen  on 
which  were  founded  the  celebrated  criminal  cases  of  legal  his 
tory;  it  was  the  incredible  and  almost  inintmilili  events,  the 
ordinarily  unbelievable  duplicities,  moral  obliquities  and  coin 
cidences,  which  made  them  what  they  were  «n«l  attracted  the  at 
tention  of  the  world.  This,  Mr.  Palford  and  his  partner  were 
obviously  obliged  to  admit.  What  they  did  not  admit  was  that 
each  things  never  having  occurred  in  one's  own  world,  they  had 
been  mentally  relegated  to  the  world  of  newspaper  and  criminal 
record  as  things  that  could  not  happen  to  oneself.  Mr.  Palford 
cleared  his  throat  in  a  seriously  cautionary  way. 

"This  is,  of  course,  a  matter  suggesting  too  serious  an  accusa 
tion  not  to  be  approached  in  the  most  conservative  manner,"  he 


"Most  serious  consequences  have  resulted  in  cases  implying 
libekus  assertions  which  have  been  made  rashly,"  added  Mr. 


T.  TEMBAROM  463 

Grimby.  "As  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  intimated  to  yon,  a  man 
of  almost  unlimited  Twy*g  has  command  of  resources  which 
it  might  not  he  easy  to  contend  with  if  he  had  reason  to  fed. 
himself  injured." 

The  fact  that  Captain  Palliser  had  in  a.  hitterly  frustrated 
moment  allowed  himself  to  be  goaded  into  losing  his  temper, 
and  "giving  away1*  to  Tembarom  the  discovery  on  which  he  had 
felt  that  he  could  rely  as  a  lever,  did  not  argue  that  a  like  weak 
ness  would  lead  him  into  more  dangerous  indiscretion.  He 
had  always  regarded  himself  as  a  careful  man  whose  &*tt*gp* 
were  well  built  about  him  at  such  crises  in  his  career  as  rendered 
entrenchment  necessary.  There  would,  of  course,  be  some  pleas 
ure  in  following  the  matter  up  and  getting  more  than  even  with 
a  man  who  had  been  insolent  to  him;  but  a  more  practical 
feature  of  the  case  was  that  if,  through  his  alert  observation 
and  shrewd  aid,  Jem  Temple  Barholm.  was  restored  to  his 
much-to-be-envied  place  in  the  world,  a  far  from  unnatural 
result  would  be  that  he  might  feel  suitable  gratitude  and  indebted 
ness  to  the  man  who,  not  from  actual  personal  liking  but  from, 
a  mere  sense  of  justice,  had  rescued  him.  As  for  the  fears  of 
Messrs.  Falford  &  Grimby,  he  had  put  himself  on  record  with 
Burrill  by  commanding  him  to  hold  his  tongue  and  &*Kng 
clearly  that  proof  was  both  necessary  and  lacking.  Xo  man 
could  be  regarded  as  taking  risks  whose  attitude  was  so  wholly 
conservative  and  non-accusing.  Servants  will  gossip.  A  su 
perior  who  reproves  such  gossip  holds  an  unattackahle  position. 
In  the  private  room  of  Palf  ord  &  Grimby,  however,  he  could 
confidently  express  his  opinions  without  risk. 

**  The  recognition  of  a  man  lost  sight  of  for  years,  and  seen 
only  for  a  moment  through  a  window,  is  not  substantial  evi 
dence,"  Mr.  Grimby  had  proceeded.  "The  incident  was 
startling,  but  not  greatly  to  he  relied  upon." 

"I  knew  him."  Palliser  was  slightly  grim,  in  his  air  of 
finality.  "  He  was  a  man  most  men  either  liked  or  hated.  I 
didn't  like  him.  I  detested  a  trick  he  had  of  staring  at  you 
under  his  drooping  lids.  By  the  way,  do  you  remember  the 
portrait  of  Miles  Hugo  which  was  so  like  him?" 

Mr.  Palf  ord  remembered  having  heard  that  there  was  a  certain 


464  T.  TEMBAROM 

portrait  in  the  gallery  which  Mr.  James  Temple  Barholm  had 
been  said  to  resemble.  He  had  no  distinct  recollection  of  the 
ancestor  it  represented. 

"  It  was  a  certain  youngster  who  was  a  page  in  the  court  of 
Charles  the  Second  and  who  died  young.  Miles  Hugo  Charles 
James  was  his  name.  He  is  my  strongest  clue.  The  American 
seemed  rather  keen  the  first  time  we  talked  together.  He  was 
equally  keen  about  Jem  Temple  Barholm.  He  wanted  to  know 
what  he  looked  like,  and  whether  it  was  true  that  he  was  like 
the  portrait." 

"  Indeed ! "  exclaimed  Palford  and  Grimby,  simultaneously. 

"  It  struck  me  that  there  was  something  more  than  mere 
curiosity  in  his  manner/'  Palliser  enlarged.  "  I  could  n't  make 
him  out  then.  Later,  I  began  to  see  that  he  was  remarkably 
anxious  to  keep  every  one  from  Strangeways.  It  was  a  sort 
of  Man  in  the  Iron  Mask  affair.  Strangeways  was  apparently 
not  only  too  excitable  to  be  looked  at  or  spoken  to,  but  too 
excitable  to  be  spoken  of.  He  would  n't  talk  about  him." 

"  That  is  exceedingly  curious/'  remarked  Mr.  Palford,  but  it 
was  not  in  response  to  Palliser.  A  few  moments  before  he 
had  suddenly  looked  thoughtful.  He  wore  now  the  aspect  of 
a  man  trying  to  recall  something  as  Palliser  continued. 

"  One  day,  after  I  had  been  to  look  at  a  sunset  through  a 
particular  window  in  the  wing  where  Strangeways  was  kept,  I 
passed  the  door  of  his  sitting-room,  and  heard  the  American 
arguing  with  him.  He  was  evidently  telling  him  he  was  to 
be  taken  elsewhere,  and  the  poor  devil  was  terrified.  I  heard 
him  beg  him  for  God's  sake  not  to  send  him  away.  There 
was  panic  in  his  voice.  In  connection  with  the  fact  that  he 
has  got  him  away  secretly  —  at  midnight  —  it 's  an  ugly  thing 
to  recall." 

"  It  would  seem  to  have  significance."  Grimby  said  it  un 
easily. 

"  It  set  me  thinking  and  looking  into  things,"  Palliser 
went  on.  "  Pearson  was  secretive,  but  the  head  man,  Burrill, 
made  casual  enlightening  remarks.  I  gathered  some  curious 
details,  which  might  or  might  not  have  meant  a  good  deal. 
When  Strangeways  suddenly  appeared  at  his  window  one  even- 


T.  TEMBAROM  465 

ing  a  number  of  things  fitted  themselves  together.  My  theory 
is  that  the  American  —  Tembarom,  as  he  used  to  call  himself 
—  may  not  have  been  certain  of  the  identity  at  first,  but  he 
wouldn't  have  brought  Strangeways  with  him  if  he  had  not 
had  some  reason  to  suspect  who  he  was.  He  dare  n't  lose  sight 
of  him,  and  he  wanted  time  to  make  sure  and  to  lay  his  plans. 
The  portrait  of  Miles  Hugo  was  a  clue  which  alarmed  him,  and 
no  doubt  he  has  been  following  it.  If  he  found  it  led  to 
nothing,  he  could  easily  turn  Strangeways  over  to  the  public 
charge  and  let  him  be  put  into  a  lunatic  asylum.  If  he  found  it 
led  to  a  revelation  which  would  make  him  a  pauper  again,  it 
would  be  easy  to  dispose  of  him." 

"  Come  !  Come !  Captain  Palliser !  We  must  n't  go  too  far !  " 
ejaculated  Mr.  Grimb}^  alarmedly.  It  shocked  him  to  think  of 
the  firm  being  dragged  into  a  case  dealing  with  capital  crime 
and  possible  hangmen !  That  was  not  its  line  of  the  profession. 

Captain  Palliser's  slight  laugh  contained  no  hint  of  being 
shocked  by  any  possibilities  whatever. 

"  There  are  extremely  private  asylums  and  so-called  sana  - 
toriums  where  the  discipline  is  strict,  and  no  questions  are 
asked.  One  sometimes  reads  in  the  papers  of  cases  in  which 
mild-mannered  keepers  in  defending  themselves  against  the  at 
tacks  of  violent  patients  are  obliged  to  use  force  —  with  disas 
trous  results.  It  is  in  such  places  that  our  investigations  should 
begin." 

"  Dear  me !  Dear  me !  "  Mr.  Grimby  broke  out.  "  Is  n't  that 
going  rather  far?  You  surely  don't  think — " 

"  Mr.  Tembarom's  chief  characteristic  was  that  he  was  a 
practical  and  direct  person.  He  would  do  what  he  had  to  do 
in  exactly  that  businesslike  manner.  The  inquiries  I  have  been 
making  have  been,  as  to  the  whereabouts  of  places  in  which  a 
superfluous  relative  might  be  placed  without  attracting  atten 
tion." 

"  That  is  really  astute,  but  —  but  —  what  do  you  think,  Pal- 
ford  ? "  Mr.  Grimby  turned  to  his  partner,  still  wearing  the 
shocked  and  disturbed  expression. 

"  I  have  been  recalling  to  mind  a  circumstance  which  probably 
bears  upon  the  case,"  said  Mr.  Palford.  "  Captain  Palliser's 


466  T.  TEMBAKOM 

mention  of  the  portrait  reminded  me  of  it.  I  remember  now 
that  on  Mr.  Temple  Barholm's  first  visit  to  the  picture-gallery 
he  seemed  much  attracted  by  the  portrait  of  Miles  Hugo.  He 
stopped  and  examined  it  curiously.  He  said  he  felt  as  if  he  had 
seen  it  before.  He  turned  to  it  once  or  twice;  and  finally 
remarked  that  he  might  have  seen  some  one  like  it  at  a  great 
fancy-dress  ball  which  had  taken  place  in  New  York." 

"Had  he  been  invited  to  the  ball?"  laughed  Palliser. 

"  I  did  not  gather  that,"  replied  Mr.  Palf ord  gravely.  "  He 
had  apparently  watched  the  arriving  guests  from  some  railings 
near  by  —  or  perhaps  it  was  a  lamp-post  —  with  other  news 
boys." 

"  He  recognized  the  likeness  to  Strangeways,  no  doubt,  and  it 
gave  him  what  he  calls  a  '  jolt/  "  said  Captain  Palliser.  "  He 
must  have  experienced  a  number  of  jolts  during  the  last  few 
months." 

Palford  &  Grimby's  view  of  the  matter  continued  to  be 
marked  by  extreme  distaste  for  the  whole  situation  and  its 
disturbing  and  irritating  possibilities.  The  coming  of  the  Ameri 
can  heir  to  the  estate  of  Temple  Barholm  had  been  trying 
to  the  verge  of  extreme  painfulness;  but,  sufficient  time  having 
lapsed  and  their  client  having  troubled  them  but  little,  they 
had  outlived  the  shock  of  his  first  appearance  and  settled  once 
more  into  the  calm  of  their  accustomed  atmosphere  and  rou 
tine.  That  he  should  suddenly  reappear  upon  their  dignified 
horizon  as  a  probable  melodramatic  criminal  was  a  fault  of 
taste  and  a  lack  of  consideration  beyond  expression.  To  be 
dragged  into  vulgar  detective  work,  to  be  referred  to  in  news 
papers  in  a  connection  which  would  lead  to  confusing  the  firm 
with  the  representatives  of  such  branches  of  the  profession  as 
dealt  with  persons  who  had  committed  acts  for  which  in  vulgar 
parlance  they  might  possibly  "  swing,"  if  their  legal  defenders 
did  not  "get  them  off,"  to  a  firm  whose  sole  affairs  had  been 
the  dealing  with  noble  and  ancient  estates,  with  advising  and 
supporting  personages  of  stately  name,  and  with  private  and 
weighty  family  confidences.  If  the  worst  came  to  the  worst,  the 
affair  would  surely  end  in  the  most  glaring  and  odious  notoriety : 
in  head-lines  and  daily  reports  even  in  London,  in  appalling 


T.  TEMBAROM  467 

pictures  of  every  one  concerned  in  every  New  York  newspaper, 
even  in  baffled  struggles  to  keep  abominable  woodcuts  of  them 
selves  —  Mr.  Edward  James  Palford  and  Mr.  James  Matthew 
Grimby  —  from  being  published  in  sensational  journalistic 
sheets !  Professional  duty  demanded  that  the  situation  should 
be  dealt  with,  that  investigation  should  be  entered  into,  that 
the  most  serious  even  if  conservative  steps  should  be  taken  at 
once.  With  regard  to  the  accepted  report  of  Mr.  James  Temple 
Barholm's  tragic  death,  it  could  not  be  denied  that  Captain 
Palliser's  view  of  the  naturalness  of  the  origin  of  the  mistake 
that  had  been  made  had  a  logical  air. 

"  In  a  region  full  of  rioting  derelicts  crazed  with  the  lawless 
excitement  of  their  dash  after  gold/'  he  had  said,  "identities 
and  names  are  easily  lost.  Temple  Barholm  himself  was  a 
derelict  and  in  a  desperate  state.  He  was  in  no  mood  to  speak 
of  himself  or  try  to  make  friends.  He  no  doubt  came  and 
went  to  such  work  as  he  did  scarcely  speaking  to  any  one.  A 
mass  of  earth  and  debris  of  all  sorts  suddenly  gives  way,  burying 
half-a-dozen  men.  Two  or  three  are  dug  out  dead,  the  others 
not  reached.  There  was  no  time  to  spare  to  dig  for  dead  men. 
Some  one  had  seen  Temple  Barholm  near  the  place;  he  was 
seen  no  more.  Ergo,  he  was  buried  with  the  rest.  At  that 
time,  those  who  knew  him  in  England  felt  it  was  the  best 
thing  that  could  have  happened  to  him.  It  would  have  been 
if  his  valet  had  not  confessed  his  trick,  and  old  Temple  Bar- 
holm  had  not  died.  My  theory  is  that  he  may  have  left  the 
place  days  before  the  accident  without  being  missed.  His 
mental  torment  caused  some  mental  illness,  it  does  not  matter 
what.  He  lost  his  memory  and  wandered  about  —  the  Lord 
knows  how  or  where  he  lived;  he  probably  never  knew  himself. 
The  American  picked  him  up  and  found  that  he  had  money. 
For  reasons  of  his  own,  he  professed  to  take  care  of  him. 
He  must  have  come  on  some  clue  just  when  he  heard  of  his 
new  fortune.  He  was  naturally  panic-stricken;  it  must  have 
been  a  big  blow  at  that  particular  moment.  He  was  sharp 
enough  to  see  what  it  might  mean,  and  held  on  to  the  poor  chap 
like  grim  death,  and  has  been  holding  on  ever  since." 

"We  must  begin  to  take  steps,"  decided  Palford  &  Grimby. 


468  T.  TEMBAEOM 

"  We  must  of  course  take  steps  at  once,  but  we  must  begin  with 
discretion." 

After  grave  private  discussion,  they  began  to  take  the  steps 
in  question  and  with  the  caution  that  it  seemed  necessary  to 
observe  until  they  felt  solid  ground  under  their  feet.  Captain 
Palliser  was  willing  to  assist  them.  He  had  been  going  into 
the  matter  himself.  He  went  down  to  the  neighborhood  of 
Temple  Barholm  and  quietly  looked  up  data  which  might  prove 
illuminating  when  regarded  from  one  point  or  another.  It 
was  on  the  first  of  these  occasions  that  he  saw  and  warned 
Burrill.  It  was  from  Burrill  he  heard  of  Tummas  Hibble- 
thwaite. 

"  There 's  an  impident  little  vagabond  in  the  village,  sir," 
he  said,  "that  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  used  to  go  and  see  and 
take  New  York  newspapers  to.  A  cripple  the  lad  is,  and  he  'B 
got  a  kind  of  craze  for  talking  about  Mr.  James  Temple  Bar- 
holm.  He  had  a  map  of  the  place  where  he  was  said  to  be 
killed.  If  I  may  presume  to  mention  it,  sir,"  he  added  with 
great  dignity,  "  it  is  my  opinion  that  the  two  had  a  good  deal 
of  talk  together  on  the  subject." 

"I  dare  say,"  Captain  Palliser  admitted  indifferently,  and 
made  no  further  inquiry  or  remark. 

He  sauntered  into  the  Hibblethwaite  cottage,  however,  late 
the  next  afternoon. 

Tummas  was  in  a  bad  temper,  for  reasons  quite  sufficient  for 
himself,  and  he  regarded  him  sourly. 

"  What  has  tha  coom  for  ?  "  he  demanded.  "  I  did  na  ask 
thee." 

"Don't  be  cheeky!"  said  Captain  Palliser.  "I  will  give 
you  a  sovereign  if  you  '11  let  me  see  the  map  you  and  Mr.  Temple 
Barholm  used  to  look  at  and  talk  so  much  about." 

He  laid  the  sovereign  down  on  the  small  table  by  Tummas's 
sofa,  but  Tummas  did  not  pick  it  up. 

"  I  know  who  tha  art.  Tha  'rt  Palliser,  an'  tha  wast  th'  one 
as  said  as  him  as  was  killed  in  th'  Klondike  had  coom  back 
alive." 

"  You  've  been  listening  to  that  servants'  story,  have  you  ?  " 
remarked  Palliser.  "  You  had  better  be  careful  as  to  what  you 


T.  TEMBAKOM  469 

say.  I  suppose  you  never  heard  of  libel  suits.  Where  would 
you  find  yourself  if  you  were  called  upon  to  pay  Mr.  Temple  Bar- 
holm  ten  thousand  pounds'  damages?  You'd  be  obliged  to  sell 
your  atlas." 

"  Burrill  towd  as  he  heard  thee  say  tha  'd  swear  in  court  as 
it  was  th'  one  as  was  killed  as  tha  'd  seen." 

"  That 's  Burrill's  story,  not  mine.  And  Burrill  had  better 
keep  his  mouth  shut,"  said  Palliser.  "  If  it  were  true,  how 
would  you  like  it  ?  I  've  heard  you  were  interested  in  '  th'  one 
as  was  killed.' '; 

Tummas's   eyes  burned  troublously. 

"  I  've  got  reet  down  taken  wi'  th'  other  un,"  he  answered. 
"  He  's  noan  gentry,  but  he 's  th'  reet  mak'.  I  —  I  dunnot  be 
lieve  as  him  as  was  killed  has  coom  back." 

"  Neither  do  I,"  Palliser  answered,  with  amiable  tolerance. 
"  The  American  gentleman  had  better  come  back  himself  and 
disprove  it.  When  you  used  to  talk  about  the  Klondike,  he 
never  said  anything  to  make  you  feel  as  if  he  doubted  that  the 
other  man  was  dead  ?  " 

"  Not  him,"  answered  Tummas. 

"  Eh !  Tummas,  what  art  tha  talkin'  about  ?  "  exclaimed  Mrs. 
Hibblethwaite,  who  was  mending  at  the  other  end  of  the  room. 
"  I  heerd  him  say  mysel,  '  Suppose  th'  story  had  n't  been  true 
an'  he  was  alive  somewhere  now,  it  'd  make  a  big  change, 
would na'  it?'  An'  he  laughed." 

"  I  never  heerd  him,"  said  Tummas,  in  stout  denial. 

"  Tha 's  losin'  tha  moind,"  commented  his  mother.  "  As  soon 
as  I  heerd  th'  talk  about  him  runnin'  away  an'  takin*  th'  mad 
gentleman  wi'  him  I  remembered  it.  An'  I  remembered  as  he 
sat  still  after  it  and  said  nowt  for  a  minute  or  so,  same  as  if 
he  was  thinkin'  things  over.  Theer  was  summat  a  bit  queer 
about  it." 

"  I  never  heerd  him,"  Tummas  asserted,  obstinately,  and 
shut  his  mouth. 

"He  were  as  ready  to  talk  about  th'  poor  gentleman  as  met 
with  th'  accident  as  tha  wert  thysel',  Tummas,"  Mrs.  Hibble 
thwaite  proceeded,  moved  by  the  opportunity  offered  for  present 
ing  her  views  on  the  exciting  topic.  "He'd  ax  thee  aw  sorts 


470  T.  TEMBAEOM 

o'  questions  about  what  tha'd  found  out  wi'  pumpin'  foak. 
He  'd  ax  me  questions  now  an'  agen  about  what  he  was  loike  to 
look  at,  an'  how  tall  he  wur.  Onct  he  axed  me  if  I  remembered 
what  soart  o'  chin  he  had  an'  how  he  spoke." 

"It  wur  to  set  thee  goin'  an'  please  me,"  volunteered  Tum- 
mas,  grudgingly.  "  He  did  it  same  as  he  'd  look  at  th'  map  to 
please  me  an'  tell  me  tales  about  th'  news-lads  i'  New  York." 

It  had  not  seemed  improbable  that  a  village  cripple  tied  to 
a  sofa  would  be  ready  enough  to  relate  all  he  knew,  and  perhaps 
so  much  more  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  use  discretion  in 
selecting  statements  of  value.  To  drop  in  and  give  him  a 
sovereign  and  let  him  talk  had  appeared  simple.  Lads  of 
his  class  liked  to  be  listened  to,  enjoyed  enlarging  upon  and 
rendering  dramatic  such  material  as  had  fallen  into  their  hands. 
But  Tummas  was  an  eccentric,  and  instinct  led  him  to  close  like 
an  oyster  before  a  remote  sense  of  subtly  approaching  attack. 
It  was  his  mother,  not  he,  who  had  provided  information;  but 
it  was  not  sufficiently  specialized  to  be  worth  much. 

"  What  did  tha  say  he  'd  run  away  fur  ? "  Tummas  said 
to  his  parent  later.  "  He 's  not  one  o'  th'  runnin'  away  soart." 

"  He  has  probably  been  called  away  by  business,"  remarked 
Captain  Palliser,  as  he  rose  to  go  after  a  few  minutes'  casual 
talk  with  Mrs.  Hibblethwaite.  "  It  was  a  mistake  not  to  leave 
an  address  behind  him.  Your  mother  is  mistaken  in  saying  that 
he  took  the  mad  gentleman  with  him.  He  had  him  removed 
late  at  night  some  time  before  he  went  himself." 

"  Tak  tha  sov'rin',"  said  Tummas,  as  Palliser  moved  away. 
"  I  did  na  show  thee  th'  atlas.  Tha  did  na  want  to  see  it." 

"  I  will  leave  the  sovereign  for  your  mother,"  said  Palliser. 
"  I  'm  sorry  you  are  not  in  a  better  humor." 

His  interest  in  the  atlas  had  indeed  been  limited  to  his  idea 
that  it  would  lead  to  subjects  of  talk  which  might  cast  il 
luminating  side-lights  and  possibly  open  up  avenues  and  vistas. 
Tummas,  however,  having  instinctively  found  him  displeasing,  he 
had  gained  but  little. 

Avenues  and  vistas  were  necessary  —  avenues  through  which 
the  steps  of  Palford  and  Grimby  might  wander,  vistas  which 
they  might  explore  with  hesitating,  investigating  glances.  So 


T.  TEMBAKOM  471 

far,  the  scene  remained  unpromisingly  blank.  The  American 
Temple  Barholm  had  simply  disappeared,  as  had  his  mysterious 
charge.  Steps  likely  to  lead  to  definite  results  can  scarcely  be 
taken  hopefully  in  the  case  of  a  person  who  has  seemed  tem 
porarily  to  cease  to  exist.  You  cannot  interrogate  him,  you 
cannot  demand  information,  whatsoever  the  foundations  upon 
which  rest  your  accusations,  if  such  accusation  can  be  launched 
only  into  thin  air  and  the  fact  that  there  is  nobody  to  reply  to 
—  to  acknowledge  or  indignantly  refute  them  —  is  in  itself  a 
serious  barrier  to  accomplishment.  It  was  also  true  that  only 
a  few.  weeks  had  elapsed  since  the  accused  had,  so  to  speak, 
dematerialized.  It  was  also  impossible  to  calculate  upon  what 
an  American  of  his  class  and  peculiarities  would  be  likely  to 
do  in  any  circumstances  whatever. 

In  private  conference,  Palford  and  Grimby  frankly  admitted 
to  each  other  that  they  would  almost  have  preferred  that  Cap 
tain  Palliser  should  have  kept  his  remarkable  suspicions  to  him 
self,  for  the  time  being  at  least.  Yet  when  they  had  admitted 
this  they  were  confronted  by  the  disturbing  possibility  —  sug 
gested  by  Palliser  —  that  actual  crime  had  been  or  might  be 
committed.  They  had  heard  unpleasant  stories  of  private  luna 
tic  asylums  and  their  like.  Things  to  shudder  at  might  be 
going  on  at  the  very  moment  they  spoke  to  each  other.  Under 
this  possibility,  no  supineness  would  be  excusable.  Efforts  to 
trace  the  missing  man  must  at  least  be  made.  Efforts  were 
made,  but  with  no  result.  Painful  as  it  was  to  reflect  on  the 
subject  of  the  asylums,  careful  private  inquiry  was  made,  in 
formation  was  quietly  collected,  there  were  even  visits  to 
gruesomely  quiet  places  on  various  polite  pretexts. 

"If  a  longer  period  of  time  had  elapsed,"  Mr.  Palford  re 
marked  several  times,  with  some  stiffness  of  manner,  "  we  should 
feel  that  we  had  more  solid  foundation  for  our  premises." 

"  Perfectly  right,"  Captain  Palliser  agreed  with  him,  "  but 
it  is  lapse  of  time  which  may  mean  life  or  death  to  Jem  Temple 
Barholm;  so  it's  perhaps  as  well  to  be  on  the  safe  side  and  go 
on  quietly  following  small  clues.  I  dare  say  you  would  feel 
more  comfortable  yourselves." 

Both  Mr.  Palford  and  Mr.  Grimby,  having  made  an  appoint- 


472  T.  TEMBAEOM 

merit  with  Miss  Alicia,  arrived  one  afternoon  at  Temple  Barholm 
to  talk  to  her  privately,  thereby  casting  her  into  a  state  of 
agonized  anxiety  which  reduced  her  to  pallor. 

"  Our  visit  is  merely  one  of  inquiry,  Miss  Temple  Barholm," 
Mr.  Palford  began.  "There  is  perhaps  nothing  alarming  in 
our  client's  absence." 

"In  the  note  which  he  left  me  he  asked  me  to  —  feel  no 
anxiety,"  Miss  Alicia  said. 

"  He  left  you  a  note  of  explanation  ?  I  wish  we  had  known 
this  earlier ! "  Mr.  Palford's  tone  had  the  note  of  relieved  ex 
clamation.  Perhaps  there  was  an  entirely  simple  solution  of 
the  painful  difficulty. 

But  his  hope  had  been  too  sanguine. 

"It  was  not  a  note  of  explanation,  exactly.  He  went  away 
too  suddenly  to  have  time  to  explain." 

The  two  men  looked  at  each  other  disturbedly. 

"  He  had  not  mentioned  to  you  his  intention  of  going?  "  asked 
Mr.  Grimby. 

"  I  feel  sure  he  did  not  know  he  was  going  when  he  said 
good-night.  He  remained  with  Captain  Palliser  talking  for 
some  time."  Miss  Alicia's  eyes  held  wavering  and  anxious  ques 
tion  as  she  looked  from  one  to  the  other.  She  wondered  how 
much  more  than  herself  her  visitors  knew.  "  He  found  a  tele 
gram  when  he  went  to  his  room.  It  contained  most  disquieting 
news  about  Mr.  Strangeways.  He  —  he  had  got  away  from  the 
place  where — " 

"  Got  away !  "  Mr.  Palford  was  again  exclamatory.  "  Was  he 
in  some  institution  where  he  was  kept  under  restraint?  " 

Miss  Alicia  was  wholly  unable  to  explain  to  herself  why 
some  quality  in  his  manner  filled  her  with  sudden  distress. 

"  Oh,  I  think  not !  Surely  not !  Surely  nothing  of  that  sort 
was  necessary.  He  was  very  quiet  always,  and  he  was  getting 
better  every  day.  But  it  was  important  that  he  should  be 
watched  over.  He  was  no  doubt  under  the  care  of  a  physician 
in  some  quiet  sanatorium." 

"  Some  quiet  sanatorium ! "  Mr.  Palford's  disturbance  of 
mind  was  manifest.  "But  you  did  not  know  where?" 

"  No.     Indeed,  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  talked  very  little  of  Mr. 


T.  TEMBAEOM  473 

Strangeways.  I  believe  he  knew  that  it  distressed  me  to  feel 
that  I  could  be  of  no  real  assistance  as  —  as  the  case  was  so 
peculiar." 

Each  perturbed  solicitor  looked  again  with  rapid  question  at 
the  other.  Miss  Alicia  saw  the  exchange  of  glances  and,  so  to 
speak,  broke  down  under  the  pressure  of  their  unconcealed 
anxiety.  The  last  few  weeks  with  their  suggestion  of  accusation 
too  vague  to  be  met  had  been  too  much  for  her. 

"  I  am  afraid  —  I  feel  sure  you  know  something  I  do  not," 
she  began.  "  I  am  most  anxious  and  unhappy.  I  have  not  liked 
to  ask  questions,  because  that  would  have  seemed  to  imply  a 
doubt  of  Mr.  Temple  Barholm.  I  have  even  remained  at  home 
because  I  did  not  wish  to  hear  things  I  could  not  understand. 
I  do  not  know  what  has  been  said.  Pearson,  in  whom  I  have 
the  greatest  confidence,  felt  that  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  would 
prefer  that  I  should  wait  until  he  returned." 

"  Do  you  think  he  will  return  ?  "  said  Mr.  Grimby,  amazedly. 

"  Oh !  "  the  gentle  creature  ejaculated.  "  Can  you  possibly 
think  he  will  not?  Why?  Why?" 

Mr.  Palford  had  shared  his  partner's  amazement.  It  was 
obvious  that  she  was  as  ignorant  as  a  babe  of  the  details  of 
Palliser's  extraordinary  story.  In  her  affectionate  consideration 
for  Temple  Barholm  she  had  actually  shut  herself  up  lest  she 
should  hear  anything  said  against  him  which  she  could  not 
refute.  She  stood  innocently  obedient  to  his  wishes,  like  the 
boy  upon  the  burning  deck,  awaiting  his  return  and  his  version 
of  whatsoever  he  had  been  accused  of.  There  was  something 
delicately  heroic  in  the  little,  slender  old  thing,  with  her 
troubled  eyes  and  her  cap  and  her  quivering  sideringlets. 

"  You,"  she  appealed,  "  are  his  legal  advisers,  and  will  be 
able  to  tell  me  if  there  is  anything  he  would  wish  me  to  know.  I 
could  not  allow  myself  to  listen  to  villagers  or  servants;  but  I 
may  ask  you." 

"  We  are  far  from  knowing  as  much  as  we  desire  to  know," 
Mr.  Palford  replied. 

"We  came  here,  in  fact,"  added  Grimby,  "to  ask  questions 
of  you,  Miss  Temple  Barholm." 

"  The  fact  that  Miss  Temple  Barholm  has  not  allowed  herself 


474  T.  TEMBAROM 

to  be  prejudiced  by  village  gossip,  which  is  invariably  largely 
unreliable,  will  make  her  an  excellent  witness,"  Mr.  Palford 
said  to  his  partner,  with  a  deliberation  which  held  suggestive 
significance.  Each  man,  in  fact,  had  suddenly  realized  that 
her  ignorance  would  leave  her  absolutely  unbiased  in  her  an 
swers  to  any  questions  they  might  put,  and  that  it  was  much 
better  in  cross-examining  an  emotional  elderly  lady  that  such 
should  be  the  case. 

"  Witness !  "  Miss  Alicia  found  the  word  alarming.  Mr.  Pal- 
ford's  bow  was  apologetically  palliative. 

"  A  mere  figure  of  speech,  madam,"  he  said. 

"  I  really  know  so  little  every  one  else  does  n't  know."  Miss 
Alicia's  protest  had  a  touch  of  bewilderment  in  it.  What 
could  they  wish  to  ask  her  ? 

"But,  as  we  understand  it,  your  relations  with  Mr.  Temple 
Barholm  were  most  affectionate  and  confidential." 

"  We  were  very  fond  of  each  other,"  she  answered. 

"  For  that  reason  he  no  doubt  talked  to  you  more  freely  than 
to  other  people,"  Mr.  Grimby  put  it.  "Perhaps,  Palford,  it 
would  be  as  well  to  explain  to  Miss  Temple  Barholm  that  a 
curious  feature  of  this  matter  is  that  it  —  in  a  way  —  involves 
certain  points  concerning  the  late  Mr.  Temple  Barholm." 

Miss  Alicia  uttered  a  pathetic  exclamation. 

"  Poor  Jem  —  who  died  so  cruelly !  " 

Mr.  Palford  bent  his  head  in  acquiescence. 

"  Perhaps  you  can  tell  me  what  the  present  Mr.  Temple 
Barholm  knew  of  him  —  how  much  he  knew?" 

"  I  told  him  the  whole  story  the  first  time  we  took  tea  to 
gether,"  Miss  Alicia  replied;  and,  between  her  recollection  of 
that  strangely  happy  afternoon  and  her  wonder  at  its  connection 
with  the  present  moment,  she  began  to  feel  timid  and  uncertain. 

"  How  did  it  seem  to  impress  him  ?  " 

She  remembered  it  all  so  well  —  his  queer,  dear  New  York 
way  of  expressing  his  warm-hearted  indignation  at  the  cruelty 
of  what  had  happened. 

"  Oh,  he  was  very  much  excited.  He  was  so  sorry  for  him. 
He  wanted  to  know  everything  about  him.  He  asked  me  what 
he  looked  like." 


T.  TEMBAEOM  475 

"  Oh !  "  said  Palf ord.     "  He  wanted  to  know  that  ?  " 

"  He  was  so  full  of  sympathy,"  she  replied,  her  explanation 
gaining  warmth.  "  When  I  told  him  that  the  picture  of  Miles 
Hugo  in  the  gallery  was  said  to  look  like  Jem  as  a  boy,  he 
wanted  very  much  to  see  it.  Afterward  we  went  and  saw  it  to 
gether.  I  shall  always  remember  how  he  stood  and  looked  at 
it.  Most  young  men  would  not  have  cared.  But  he  always  had 
such  a  touching  interest  in  poor  Jem." 

"  You  mean  that  he  asked  questions  about  him  —  about  his 
death,  and  so  forth  ?  "  was  Mr.  Palford' s  inquiry. 

"  About  all  that  concerned  him.  He  was  interested  especially 
in  his  looks  and  manner  of  speaking  and  personality,  so  to 
speak.  And  in  the  awful  accident  which  ended  his  life,  though 
he  would  not  let  me  talk  about  that  after  he  had  asked  his  first 
questions." 

"What  kind  of  questions?"  suggested  Grimby. 

"  Only  about  what  was  known  of  the  time  and  place,  and 
how  the  sad  story  reached  England.  It  used  to  touch  me  to 
think  that  the  only  person  who  seemed  to  care  was  the  one  who 
—  might  have  been  expected  to  be  almost  glad  the  tragic  thing 
had  happened.  But  he  was  not." 

Mr.  Palford  watched  Mr.  Grimby,  and  Mr.  Grimby  gave 
more  than  one  dubious  and  distressed  glance  at  Palford. 

"  His  interest  was  evident,"  remarked  Palford,  thoughtfully. 
"  And  unusual  under  the  circumstances." 

For  a  moment  he  hesitated,  then  put  another  question :  "  Did 
he  ever  seem  —  I  should  say,  do  you  remember  any  occasion 
when  he  appeared  to  think  that  —  there  might  be  any  reason 
to  doubt  that  Mr.  James  Temple  Barholm  was  one  of  the  men 
who  died  in  the  Klondike  ?  " 

He  felt  that  through  this  wild  questioning  they  had  at  least 
reached  a  certain  testimony  supporting  Captain  Palliser's  views; 
and  his  interest  reluctantly  increased.  It  was  reluctant  because 
there  could  be  no  shadow  of  a  question  that  this  innocent 
spinster  lady  told  the  absolute  truth;  and,  this  being  the  case, 
one  seemed  to  be  dragged  to  the  verge  of  depths  which  must 
inevitably  be  explored.  Miss  Alicia's  expression  was  that  of  one 
who  conscientiously  searched  memory. 


476  T.  TEMBAROM 

t 

"I  do  not  remember  that  he  really  expressed  doubt,"  she 
answered,  carefully.  "  Not  exactly  that,  but  — " 

"  But  what  ?  "  prompted  Palf  ord  as  she  hesitated.  "  Please 
try  to  recall  exactly  what  he  said.  It  is  most  important." 

The  fact  that  his  manner  was  almost  eager,  and  that  eagerness 
was  not  his  -habit,  made  her  catch  her  breath  and  look  more 
questioning  and  puzzled  than  before. 

"  One  day  he  came  to  my  sitting-room  when  he  seemed  rather 
excited,"  she  explained.  "  He  had  been  with  Mr.  Strangeways, 
who  had  been  worse  than  usual.  Perhaps  he  wanted  to  distract 
himself  and  forget  about  it.  He  asked  me  questions  and  talked 
about  poor  Jem  for  about  an  hour.  And  at  last  he  said,  'Do 
you  suppose  there's  any  sort  of  chance  that  it  mightn't  be 
true  —  that  story  that  came  from  the  Klondike  ? '  He  said  it  so 
thoughtfully  that  I  was  startled  and  said,  '  Do  you  think  there 
could  be  such  a  chance  —  do  you  ? '  And  he  drew  a  long 
breath  and  answered,  '  You  want  to  be  sure  about  things  like 
that;  you  've  got  to  be  sure'  I  was  a  little  excited,  so  he  changed 
the  subject  very  soon  afterward,  and  I  never  felt  quite  certain 
of  what  he  was  really  thinking.  You  see  what  he  said  was 
not  so  much  an  expression  of  doubt  as  a  sort  of  question." 

A  touch  of  the  lofty  condemnatory  made  Mr.  Palford  im 
pressive. 

"  I  am  compelled  to  admit  that  I  fear  that  it  was  a  question 
of  which  he  had  already  guessed  the  answer,"  he  said. 

At  this  point  Miss  Alicia  clasped  her  hands  quite  tightly  to 
gether  upon  her  knees. 

"  If  you  please,"  she  exclaimed,  "  I  must  ask  you  to  make 
things  a  little  clear  to  me.  What  dreadful  thing  has  happened  ? 
I  will  regard  any  communication  as  a  most  sacred  confi 
dence." 

"I  think  we  may  as  well,  Palford?"  Mr.  Grimby  suggested 
to  his  partner. 

"Yes,"  Palford  acquiesced.  He  felt  the  difficulty  of  a  blank 
explanation.  "  "We  are  involved  in  a  most  trying  position,"  he 
said.  "  We  feel  that  great  discretion  must  be  used  until  we 
have  reached  more  definite  certainty.  An  extraordinary  —  in 
fact,  a  startling  thing  has  occurred.  We  are  beginning,  as  a 


T.  TEMBAEOM  477 

result  of  cumulative  evidence,  to  feel  that  there  was  reason  to 
believe  that  the  Klondike  story  was  to  be  doubted — " 

"  That  poor  Jem  —  !  "  cried  Miss  Alicia. 

"  One  begins  to  be  gravely  uncertain  as  to  whether  he  has  not 
been  in  this  house  for  months,  whether  he  was  not  the  mysterious 
Mr.  Strangeways ! " 

"  Jem !  Jem ! "  gasped  poor  little  Miss  Temple  Barholm,  quite 
white  with  shock. 

"And  if  he  was  the  mysterious  Strangeways,"  Mr.  Grimby 
assisted  to  shorten  the  matter,  "  the  American  Temple  Barholm 
apparently  knew  the  fact,  brought  him  here  for  that  reason,  and 
for  the  same  reason  kept  him  secreted  and  under  restraint." 

"  No  I  No !  "  cried  Miss  Alicia.  "  Never !  Never !  I  beg  you 
not  to  say  such  a  thing.  Excuse  me  —  I  cannot  listen!  It 
would  be  wrong  —  ungrateful.  Excuse  me  !  "  She  got  up  from 
her  seat,  trembling  with  actual  anger  in  her  sense  of  outrage. 
It  was  a  remarkable  thing  to  see  the  small,  elderly  creature 
angry,  but  this  remarkable  thing  had  happened.  It  was  as 
though  she  were  a  mother  defending  her  young. 

"  I  loved  poor  Jem  and  I  love  Temple,  and,  though  I  am  only 
a  woman  who  never  has  been  the  least  clever,  I  know  them  both. 
I  know  neither  of  them  could  lie  or  do  a  wicked,  cunning 
thing.  Temple  is  the  soul  of  honor." 

It  was  quite  an  inspirational  outburst.  She  had  never  before 
in  her  life  said  so  much  at  one  time.  Of  course  tears  began  to 
stream  down  her  face,  while  Mr.  Palford  and  Mr.  Grimby  gazed 
at  her  in  great  embarrassment. 

"  If  Mr.  Strangeways  was  poor  Jem  come  back  alive,  Temple 
did  not  know  —  he  never  knew.  All  he  did  for  him  was  done 
for  kindness'  sake.  I  —  I  — "  It  was  inevitable  that  she 
should  stammer  before  going  to  this  length  of  violence,  and 
that  the  words  should  burst  from  her :  "  I  would  swear  it !  " 

It  was  really  a  shock  to  both  Palford  and  Grimby.  That  a 
lady  of  Miss  Temple  Barholm's  age  and  training  should  volun 
teer  to  swear  to  a  thing  was  almost  alarming.  It  was  also  in 
rather  unpleasing  taste. 

"  Captain  Palliser  obliged  Mr.  Temple  Temple  Barholm  to 
confess  that  he  had  known  for  some  time/'  Mr.  Palford  said 


478  T.  TEMBAROM 

with  cold  regret.  "  He  also  informed  him  that  he  should  com 
municate  with  us  without  delay." 

"  Captain  Palliser  is  a  bad  man/'  Miss  Alicia  choked  back 
a  gasp  to  make  the  protest. 

"  It  was  after  their  interview  that  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  al 
most  immediately  left  the  house." 

"  Without  any  explanation  whatever/'  added  Grimby. 

"  He  left  a  few  lines  for  me,"  defended  Miss  Alicia. 

"We  have  not  seen  them."  Mr.  Palford  was  still  as  well  as 
cold.  Poor  little  Miss  Alicia  took  them  out  of  her  pocket  with 
an  unsteady  hand.  They  were  always  with  her,  and  she  could 
not  on  such  a  challenge  seem  afraid  to  allow  them  to  be  read. 
Mr.  Palford  took  them  from  her  with  a  slight  bow  of  thanks. 
He  adjusted  his  glasses  and  read  aloud,  with  pauses  between 
phrases  which  seemed  somewhat  to  puzzle  him. 

"Decor  little  Miss  Alicia: 

"  I  've  got  to  light  out  of  here  as  quick  as  I  can  make  it.  I 
can't  even  stop  to  tell  you  why.  There 's  just  one  thing  —  don't 
get  rattled,  Miss  Alicia.  Whatever  any  one  says  or  does,  don't 
get  rattled. 

"Yours  affectionately, 

"T.  TEMBAROM/' 

There  was  a  silence,  Mr.  Palford  passed  the  paper  to  his 
partner,  who  gave  it  careful  study.  Afterward  he  refolded  it 
and  handed  it  back  to  Miss  Alicia. 

"In  a  court  of  law,"  was  Mr.  Palford's  sole  remark,  "it 
would  not  be  regarded  as  evidence  for  the  defendant." 

Miss  Alicia's  tears  were  still  streaming,  but  she  held  her 
ringleted  head  well  up. 

"  I  cannot  stay !  I  beg  your  pardon,  I  do  indeed !  "  she  said. 
"  But  I  must  leave  you.  You  see,"  she  added,  with  her  fine  little 
touch  of  dignity,  "as  yet  this  house  is  still  Mr.  Temple  Bar- 
holm's  home,  and  I  am  the  grateful  recipient  of  his  bounty. 
Burrill  will  attend  you  and  make  you  quite  comfortable."  With 
an  obeisance  which  was  like  a  slight  curtsey,  she  turned  and 
fled. 


T.  TEMBAEOM  479 

In  less  than  an  hour  she  walked  up  the  neat  bricked  path, 
and  old  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  looking  out,  saw  her  through  the  tiers 
of  flower-pots  in  the  window.  Hutchinson  himself  was  in 
London,  but  Ann  was  reading  at  the  other  side  of  the  room. 

"  Here 's  poor  little  owd  Miss  Temple  Barholm  aw  in  a  flut 
ter,"  remarked  her  grandmother.  "  Tha  's  got  some  work  cut 
out  for  thee  if  tha  's  going  to  quiet  her.  Oppen  th'  door, 
law." 

Ann  opened  the  door,  and  stood  by  it  with  calm  though  wel 
coming  dimples. 

"  Miss  Hutchinson  " —  Miss  Alicia  began  all  at  once  to  real 
ize  that  they  did  not  know  each  other,  and  that  she  had  flown 
to  the  refuge  of  her  youth  without  being  at  all  aware  of  what 
she  was  about  to  say.  "  Oh !  Little  Ann ! "  she  broke  down 
with  frank  tears.  "  My  poor  boy !  My  poor  boy !  " 

Little  Ann  drew  her  inside  and  closed  the  door. 

"There,  Miss  Temple  Barholm,"  she  said.  "There  now! 
Just  come  in  and  sit  down.  I  '11  get  you  a  good  cup  of  tea. 
You  need  one." 


•  HE  Duke  of  Stone  had  been  sufficiently  oc 
cupied  with  one  of  his  slighter  attacks  of 
rheumatic  gout  to  have  been,  so  to  speak,  out 
of  the  running  in  the  past  weeks.  His  in 
disposition  had  not  condemned  him  to  the 
usual  dullness,  however.  He  had  suffered 
less  pain  than  was  customary,  and  Mrs. 
Braddle  had  been  more  than  usually  inter 
esting  in  conversation  on  those  occasions 
when,  in  making  him  very  comfortable  in 
one  way  or  another,  she  felt  that  a  measure 
of  entertainment  would  add  to  his  well-being. 
His  epicurean  habit  of  mind  tended  toward  causing  him  to 
find  a  subtle  pleasure  in  the  hearing  of  various  versions  of 
any  story  whatever.  His  intimacy  with  T.  Tembarom  had  fur 
nished  forth  many  an  agreeable  mental  repast  for  him.  He 
had  had  T.  Tembarom's  version  of  himself,  the  version  of  the 
county,  the  version  of  the  uneducated  class,  and  his  own  version. 
All  of  these  had  had  varying  shades  of  their  own.  He  had  found 
a  cynically  fine  flavor  in  Palliser's  version,  which  he  had  gathered 
through  talk  and  processes  of  exclusion  and  inclusion. 

"  There  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  it,"  he  summed  it  up. 
"  It 's  plausible  on  ordinary  sophisticated  grounds.  T.  Tem 
barom  would  say,  'It  looks  sort  of  that  way."' 

As  Mrs.  Braddle  had  done  what  she  could  in  the  matter  of 
expounding  her  views  of  the  uncertainties  of  the  village  atti 
tude,  he  had  listened  with  stimulating  interest.  Mrs.  Brad- 
die's  version  on  the  passing  of  T.  Tembarom  stood  out  pic 
turesquely  against  the  background  of  the  version  which  was 
his  own  —  the  one  founded  on  the  singular  facts  he  had  shared 
knowledge  of  with  the  chief  character  in  the  episode.  He  had 

480 


T.  TEMBAEOM  481 

not,  like  Miss  Alicia,  received  a  communication  from  Tem- 
barom.  This  seemed  to  him  one  of  the  attractive  features  of 
the  incident.  It  provided  opportunity  for  speculation.  Some 
wild  development  had  called  the  youngster  away  in  a  rattling 
hurry.  Of  what  had  happened  since  his  departure  he  knew 
no  more  than  the  villagers  knew.  What  had  happened  for 
some  months  before  his  going  he  had  watched  with  the  feeling 
of  an  intelligently  observant  spectator  at  a  play.  He  had  been 
provided  with  varied  emotions  by  the  fantastic  drama.  He 
had  smiled;  he  had  found  himself  moved  once  or  twice,  and 
he  had  felt  a  good  deal  of  the  thrill  of  curious  uncertainty  as 
to  what  the  curtain  would  rise  and  fall  on.  The  situation  was 
such  that  it  was  impossible  to  guess.  Results  could  seem  only 
to  float  in  the  air.  One  thing  might  happen ;  so  might  another, 
so  might  a  dozen  more.  What  he  wished  really  to  attain  was 
some  degree  of  certainty  as  to  what  was  likely  to  occur  in  any 
case  to  the  American  Temple  Barholm. 

He  felt,  the  first  time  he  drove  over  to  call  on  Miss  Alicia, 
that  his  indisposition  and  confinement  to  his  own  house  had 
robbed  him  of  something.  They  had  deprived  him  of  the  op 
portunity  to  observe  shades  of  development  and  to  hear  the 
expressing  of  views  of  the  situation  as  it  stood.  He  drove  over 
with  views  of  his  own  and  with  anticipations.  He  had  reason 
to  know  that  he  would  encounter  in  the  dear  lady  indications 
of  the  feeling  that  she  had  reached  a  crisis.  There  was  a  sense 
of  this  crisis  impending  as  one  mounted  the  terrace  steps  and 
entered  the  hall.  The  men-servants  endeavored  to  wipe  from 
their  countenances  any  expression  denoting  even  a  vague  knowl 
edge  of  it.  He  recognized  their  laudable  determination  to  do 
so.  Burrill  was  monumental  in  the  unconsciousness  of  his  out 
ward  bearing. 

Miss  Alicia,  sitting  waiting  on  Fate  in  the  library,  wore  pre 
cisely  the  aspect  he  had  known  she  would  wear.  She  had  been 
lying  awake  at  night  and  she  had  of  course  wept  at  intervals, 
since  she  belonged  to  the  period  the  popular  female  view  of 
which  had  been  that  only  the  unfeeling  did  not  so  relieve  them 
selves  in  crises  of  the  affections.  Her  eyelids  were  rather  pink 
and  her  nice  little  face  was  tired. 


482  T.  TEMBAROM 

"  It  is  very,  very  kind  of  you  to  come,"  she  said,  when  they 
shook  hands.  "  I  wonder  " —  her  hesitance  was  touching  in  its 
obvious  appeal  to  him  not  to  take  the  wrong  side, — "  I  wonder 
if  you  know  how  deeply  troubled  I  have  been  ?  " 

"You  see,  I  have  had  a  touch  of  my  abominable  gout,  and 
my  treasure  of  a  Braddle  has  been  nursing  me  and  gossiping," 
he  answered.  "  So,  of  course  I  know  a  great  deal.  None  of  it 
true,  I  dare  say.  I  felt  I  must  come  and  see  you,  however." 

He  looked  so  neat  and  entirely  within  the  boundaries  of 
finished  and  well-dressed  modernity  and  every-day  occurrence, 
in  his  perfectly  fitting  clothes,  beautifully  shining  boots,  and 
delicate  fawn  gaiters,  that  she  felt  a  sort  of  support  in  his 
mere  aspect.  The  mind  connected  such  almost  dapper  fresh 
ness  and  excellent  taste  only  with  unexaggerated  incidents  and 
a  behavior  which  almost  placed  the  stamp  of  absurdity  upon 
the  improbable  in  circumstance.  The  vision  of  disorderly  and 
illegal  possibilities  seemed  actually  to  fade  into  an  unreality. 

"  If  Mr.  Palf ord  and  Mr.  Grimby  knew  him  as  I  know  him 
—  as  —  as  you  know  him  — "  she  added  with  a  faint  hopeful 
ness. 

"  Yes,  if  they  knew  him  as  we  know  him  that  would  make  a 
different  matter  of  it,"  admitted  the  duke,  amiably.  But, 
thought  Miss  Alicia,  he  might  only  have  put  it  that  way 
through  consideration  for  her  feelings,  and  because  he  was  an 
extremely  polished  man  who  could  not  easily  reveal  to  a  lady  a 
disagreeable  truth.  He  did  not  speak  with  the  note  of  natural 
indignation  which  she  thought  she  must  have  detected  if  he  had 
felt  as  she  felt  herself.  He  was  of  course  a  man  whose  manner 
had  always  the  finish  of  composure.  He  did  not  seem  dis 
turbed  or  even  very  curious  —  only  kind  and  most  polite. 

"If  we  only  knew  where  he  was!"  she  began  again.  "If 
we  only  knew  where  Mr.  Strangeways  was ! " 

"My  impression  is  that  Messrs.  Palf  ord  &  Grimby  will 
probably  find  them  both  before  long,"  he  consoled  her.  "  They 
are  no  doubt  exciting  themselves  unnecessarily." 

He  was  not  agitated  at  all ;  she  felt  it  would  have  been  kinder 
if  he  had  been  a  little  agitated.  He  was  really  not  the  kind  of 
person  whose  feelings  appeared  very  deep,  being  given  to  a 


T.  TEMBAROM  483 

light  and  graceful  cynicism  of  speech  which  delighted  people; 
so  perhaps  it  was  not  natural  that  he  should  express  any  par 
ticular  emotion  even  in  a  case  affecting  a  friend  —  surely  he 
had  been  Temple's  friend.  But  if  he  had  seemed  a  little  dis 
tressed,  or  doubtful  or  annoyed,  she  would  have  felt  that  she 
understood  better  his  attitude.  As  it  was,  he  might  almost 
have  been  on  the  other  side  —  a  believer  or  a  disbeliever  —  or 
merely  a  person  looking  on  to  see  what  would  happen.  When 
they  sat  down,  his  glance  seemed  to  include  her  with  an  in 
terest  which  was  sympathetic  but  rather  as  if  she  were  a  child 
whom  he  would  like  to  pacify.  This  seemed  especially  so  when 
she  felt  she  must  make  clear  to  him  the  nature  of  the  crisis 
which  was  pending,  as  he  had  felt  when  he  entered  the  house. 

"You  perhaps  do  not  know" — the  appeal  which  had  shown 
itself  in  her  eyes  was  in  her  voice — "that  the  solicitors  have 
decided,  after  a  great  deal  of  serious  discussion  and  private 
inquiry  in  London,  that  the  time  has  come  when  they  must 
take  open  steps." 

"  In  the  matter  of  investigation  ? "  he  inquired. 

"  They  are  coming  here  this  afternoon  with  Captain  Palliser 
to  —  to  question  the  servants,  and  some  of  the  villagers.  They 
will  question  me,"  alarmedly. 

"They  would  be  sure  to  do  that," — he  really  seemed  quite 
to  envelop  her  with  kindness  — "  but  I  beg  of  you  not  to  be 
alarmed.  Nothing  you  could  have  to  say  could  possibly  do 
harm  to  Temple  Barholm."  He  knew  it  was  her  fear  of  this 
contingency  which  terrified  her. 

"  You  do  feel  sure  of  that  ? "  she  burst  forth,  relievedly. 
"  You  do  —  because  you  know  him  ?  " 

"  I  do.    Let  us  be  calm,  dear  lady.    Let  us  be  calm." 

"I  will!  I  will!"  she  protested.  "But  Captain  Palliser 
has  arranged  that  a  lady  should  come  here  —  a  lady  who  dis 
liked  poor  Temple  very  much.  She  was  most  unjust  to  him." 

"  Lady  Joan  Fayre  ?  "  he  suggested,  and  then  paused  with  a 
remote  smile  as  if  lending  himself  for  the  moment  to  some 
humor  he  alone  detected  in  the  situation. 

"  She  will  not  injure  his  cause,  I  think  I  can  assure  you." 

"  She  insisted  on  misunderstanding  him.     I  am  so  afraid  — " 


484  T.  TEMBAROM 

The  appearance  of  Pearson  at  the  door  interrupted  her  and 
caused  her  to  rise  from  her  seat.  The  neat  young  man  was 
pale  and  spoke  in  a  nervously  lowered  voice. 

"  I  beg  pardon,  Miss.  I  beg  your  Grace's  pardon  for  in 
truding,  but — " 

Miss  Alicia  moved  toward  him  in  such  a  manner  that  he 
himself  seemed  to  feel  that  he  might  advance. 

"  What  is  it,  Pearson  ?    Have  you  anything  special  to  say  ?  " 

"I  hope  I  am  not  taking  too  great  a  liberty,  Miss,  but  I  did 
come  in  for  a  purpose,  knowing  that  his  Grace  was  with  you 
and  thinking  you  might  both  kindly  advise  me.  It  is  about 
Mr.  Temple  Barholm,  your  Grace — "  addressing  him  as  if  in 
involuntary  recognition  of  the  fact  that  he  might  possibly  prove 
the  greater  support. 

"  Our  Mr.  Temple  Barholm,  Pearson  ?  We  are  being  told 
there  are  two  of  them."  The  duke's  delicate  emphasis  on  the 
possessive  pronoun  was  delightful,  and  it  so  moved  and  en 
couraged  sensitive  little  Pearson  that  he  was  emboldened  to 
answer  with  modest  firmness: 

"Yes, —  ours.     Thank  you,  your  Grace." 

"You  feel  him  yours  too,  Pearson?"  a  shade  more  delight 
fully  still. 

"I  —  I  take  the  liberty,  your  Grace,  of  being  deeply  attached 
to  him,  and  more  than  grateful." 

"  What  did  you  want  to  ask  advice  about  ?  " 

"  The  family  solicitors.  Captain  Palliser  and  Lady  Joan 
Fayre  and  Mr.  and  Miss  Hutchinson  are  to  be  here  shortly, 
and  I  have  been  told  I  am  to  be  questioned.  What  I  want  to 
know,  your  Grace,  is — "  He  paused,  and  looked  no  longer 
pale  but  painfully  red  as  he  gathered  himself  together  for  his 
anxious  outburst  —  "  Must  I  speak  the  truth  ?  " 

Miss  Alicia  started  alarmedly. 

The  duke  looked  down  at  the  delicate  fawn  gaiters  covering 
his  fine  instep.  His  fleeting  smile  was  not  this  time  an  external 
one. 

"  Do  you  not  wish  to  speak  the  truth,  Pearson  ?  " 

Pearson's  manner  could  have  been  described  only  as  one  of 
obstinate  frankness. 


T.  TEMBAEOM  485 

"No,  your  Grace.  I  do  not!  Your  Grace  may  misunder 
stand  me  —  but  I  do  not !  " 

His  Grace  tapped  the  gaiters  with  the  slight  ebony  cane  he 
held  in  his  hand. 

"  Is  this  " —  he  put  it  with  impartial  curiosity  — "  because 
the  truth  might  be  detrimental  to  our  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  ?  " 

"  If  you  please,  your  Grace/'  Pearson  made  a  firm  step  for 
ward,  "  what  is  the  truth  ?  " 

"  That  is  what  Messrs.  Palf  ord  &  Grimby  seem  determined 
to  find  out.  Probably  only  our  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  can  tell 
them." 

"  Your  Grace,  what  I  'm  thinking  of  is  that  if  I  tell  the 
truth  it  may  seem  to  prove  something  that's  not  the  truth." 

"  What  kinds  of  things,  Pearson  ?  "  still  impartially. 

"  I  can  be  plain  with  your  Grace.  Things  like  this :  I  was 
with  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  and  Mr.  Strangeways  a  great  deal. 
They'll  ask  me  about  what  I  heard.  They'll  ask  me  if  Mr. 
Strangeways  was  willing  to  go  away  to  the  doctor;  if  he  had 
to  be  persuaded  and  argued  with.  Well,  he  had  and  he  had  n't, 
your  Grace.  At  first,  just  the  mention  of  it  would  upset  him 
so  that  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  would  have  to  stop  talking  about 
it  and  quiet  him  down.  But  when  he  improved  —  and  he  did 
improve  wonderfully,  your  Grace  —  he  got  into  the  way  of  sit 
ting  and  thinking  it  over  and  listening  quite  quiet.  But  if  I  'm 
asked  suddenly — " 

"What  you  are  afraid  of  is  that  you  may  be  asked  point- 
blank  questions  without  warning  ?  "  his  Grace  put  it  with  the 
perspicacity  of  experience. 

"That's  why  I  should  be  grateful  for  advice.  Must  I  tell 
the  truth,  your  Grace,  when  it  will  make  them  believe  things 
I  'd  swear  are  lies  —  I  'd  swear  it,  your  Grace." 

"  So  would  I,  Pearson."  His  serene  lightness  was  of  the 
most  baffling,  but  curiously  supporting,  order.  "  This  being 
the  case,  my  advice  would  be  not  to  go  into  detail.  Let  us  tell 
white  lies  —  all  of  us  —  without  a  shadow  of  hesitancy.  Miss 
Temple  Barholm,  even  you  must  do  your  best." 

"  I  will  try  —  indeed,  I  will  try !  "  And  the  Duke  felt  her 
tremulously  ardent  assent  actually  delicious. 


486  T.  TEMBAKOM 

"  There !  we  '11  consider  that  settled,  Pearson,"  he  said. 

"Thank  you,  your  Grace.  Thank  you,  Miss,"  Pearson's  re 
lieved  gratitude  verged  on  the  devout.  He  turned  to  go,  and 
as  he  did  so  his  attention  was  arrested  by  an  approach  he  re 
marked  through  a  window. 

"  Mr.  and  Miss  Hutchinson  are  arriving  now,  Miss,"  he  an 
nounced,  hastily. 

"They  are  to  be  brought  in  here/'  said  Miss  Alicia. 

The  duke  quietly  left  his  seat  and  went  to  look  through  the 
window  with  frank  and  unembarrassed  interest  in  the  approach. 
He  went,  in  fact,  to  look  at  Little  Ann,  and  as  he  watched  her 
walk  up  the  avenue,  her  father  lumbering  beside  her,  he  evi 
dently  found  her  aspect  sufficiently  arresting. 

"  Ah ! "  he  exclaimed  softly,  and  paused.  "  What  a  lot  of 
very  nice  red  hair,"  he  said  next.  And  then,  "No  wonder! 
No  wonder!" 

"That,  I  should  say,"  he  remarked  as  Miss  Alicia  drew 
near,  "is  what  I  once  heard  a  bad  young  man  call  'a  deserv 
ing  case/" 

He  was  conscious  that  she  might  have  been  privately  a  little 
shocked  by  such  aged  flippancy,  but  she  was  at  the  moment 
perturbed  by  something  else. 

"The  fact  is  that  I  have  never  spoken  to  Hutchinson,"  she 
fluttered.  "These  changes  are  very  confusing.  I  suppose  I 
ought  to  say  Mr.  Hutchinson,  now  that  he  is  such  a  successful 
person,  and  Temple — " 

"  Without  a  shadow  of  a  doubt !  "  The  duke  seemed  struck 
by  the  happiness  of  the  idea.  "  They  will  make  him  a  peer 
presently.  He  may  address  me  as  '  Stone '  at  any  moment. 
One  must  learn  to  adjust  one's  self  with  agility.  'The  old 
order  changeth/  Ah !  she  is  smiling  at  him  and  I  see  the  dim 
ples." 

Miss  Alicia  made  a  clean  breast  of  it. 

"  I  went  to  her  —  I  could  not  help  it !  "  she  confessed.  "  I 
was  in  such  distress  and  dare  not  speak  to  anybody.  Temple 
had  told  me  that  she  was  so  wonderful.  He  said  she  always 
understood  and  knew  what  to  do." 

"  Did  she  in  this  case  ?  "  he  asked,  smiling. 


T.  TEMBAEOM  487 

Miss  Alicia's  manner  was  that  of  one  who  could  express  the 
extent  of  her  admiration  only  in  disconnected  phrases. 

"  She  was  like  a  little  rock.  Such  a  quiet,  firm  way !  Such 
calm  certainty!  Oh,  the  comfort  she  has  been  to  me!  I 
begged  her  to  come  here  to-day.  I  did  not  know  her  father 
had  returned." 

"  No  doubt  he  will  have  testimony  to  give  which  will  be  of 
the  greatest  assistance,"  the  duke  said  most  encouragingly. 
"  Perhaps  he  will  be  a  sort  of  rock." 

"I  —  I  don't  in  the  least  know  what  he  will  be ! "  sighed 
Miss  Alicia,  evidently  uncertain  in  her  views. 

But  when  the  father  and  daughter  were  announced  she  felt 
that  his  Grace  was  really  enchanting  in  the  happy  facility  of 
his  manner.  He  at  least  adjusted  himself  with  agility. 
Hutchinson  was  of  course  lumbering.  Lacking  the  support  of 
T.  Tembarom's  presence  and  incongruity,  he  himself  was  the 
incongruous  feature.  He  would  have  been  obliged  to  bluster 
by  way  of  sustaining  himself,  even  if  he  had  only  found  him 
self  being  presented  to  Miss  Alicia;  but  when  it  was  revealed 
to  him  that  he  was  also  confronted  with  the  greatest  personage 
of  the  neighborhood,  he  became  as  hot  and  red  as  he  had  become 
during  certain  fateful  business  interviews.  More  so,  indeed. 
"  Th'  other  chaps  had  n't  been  dukes ; "  and  to  Hutchinson  the 
old  order  had  not  yet  so  changed  that  a  duke  was  not  an  awk 
wardly  impressive  person  to  face  unexpectedly. 

The  duke's  manner  of  shaking  hands  with  him,  however,  was 
even  touched  with  an  amiable  suggestion  of  appreciation  of  the 
value  of  a  man  of  genius.  He  had  heard  of  the  invention,  in 
fact  knew  some  quite  technical  things  about  it.  He  realized 
its  importance.  He  had  congratulations  for  the  inventor  and 
the  world  of  inventions  so  greatly  benefited. 

"  Lancashire  must  be  proud  of  your  success,  Mr.  Hutchin 
son."  How  agreeably  and  with  what  ease  he.  said  it! 

"  Aye,  it 's  a  success  now,  your  Grace/'  Hutchinson  answered, 
"  but  I  might  have  waited  a  good  bit  longer  if  it  had  n't  been 
for  that  lad  an'  his  bold  backing  of  me." 

"  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  ?  "  said  the  duke. 

"  Aye.     He 's  got  th'  way  of  making  folks  see  things  that 


488  T.  TEMBAKOM 

they  can't  see  even  when  they  're  hitting  them  in  th'  eyes.  I  'd 
that  lost  heart  I  could  never  have  done  it  myself." 

"  But  now  it  is  done,"  smiled  his  Grace.     "  Delightful !  " 

"  I  've  got  there  —  same  as  they  say  in  New  York  —  I  've  got 
there,"  said  Hutchinson. 

He  sat  down  in  response  to  Miss  Alicia's  invitation.  His 
unease  was  wonderfully  dispelled.  He  felt  himself  a  person  of 
sufficient  importance  to  address  even  a  duke  as  man  to  man. 

"  What 's  all  this  romancin'  talk  about  th'  other  Temple 
Barholm  comin'  back,  an'  our  lad  knowin'  an'  hidin'  him  away  ? 
An'  Palliser  an'  th'  lawyers  an'  th'  police  bein'  after  'em. 
both?" 

"You  have  heard  the  whole  story?"  from  the  duke. 

"  I  've  heard  naught  else  since  I  come  back." 

"  Grandmother  knew  a  great  deal  before  we  came  home," 
said  Little  Ann. 

The  duke  turned  his  attention  to  her  with  an  engaged  smile. 
His  look,  his  bow,  his  bearing,  in  the  moment  of  their  being 
presented  to  each  other,  had  seemed  to  Miss  Alicia  the  most 
perfect  thing.  His  fine  eye  had  not  obviously  wandered  while 
he  talked  to  her  father,  but  it  had  in  fact  been  taking  her  in 
with  an  inclusiveness  not  likely  to  miss  agreeable  points  of 
detail. 

"  What  is  her  opinion,  may  I  ask  ?  "  he  said.  "  What  does 
she  say?" 

"  Grandmother  is  very  set  in  her  ways,  your  Grace."  The 
limpidity  of  her  blue  eye  and  a  flickering  dimple  added  much 
to  the  quaint  comprehensiveness  of  her  answer.  "  She  says  the 
world  's  that  full  of  fools  that  if  they  were  all  killed  the  Lord 
would  have  to  begin  again  with  a  new  Adam  and  Eve." 

"  She  has  entire  faith  in  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  —  as  you 
have,"  put  forward  his  Grace. 

"  Mine 's  not  faith  exactly.  I  know  him/'  Little  Ann  an 
swered,  her  tone  as  limpid  as  her  eyes. 

"  There 's  more  than  her  has  faith  in  him,"  broke  forth 
Hutchinson.  "Danged  if  I  don't  like  th'  way  them  village 
chaps  are  taking  it.  They're  ready  to  fight  over  it.  Since 
they  've  found  out  what  it 's  come  to,  an'  about  th'  lawyers 


T.  TEMBAKOM  489 

comin'  down,  they  're  talkin'  about  gettin'  up  a  kind  o'  demon 
stration." 

"  Delightful !  "  ejaculated  his  Grace  again.  He  leaned  for 
ward.  "  Quite  what  I  should  have  expected.  There 's  a  good 
deal  of  beer  drunk,  I  suppose." 

"Plenty  o'  beer,  but  it'll  do  no  harm."  Hutchinson  began 
to  chuckle.  "  They  're  talkin'  o'  gettin'  out  th'  fife  an'  drum 
band  an'  marchin'  round  th'  village  with  a  calico  banner  with 
e  Vote  for  T.  Tembarom '  painted  on  it,  to  show  what  they 
think  of  him." 

The  duke  chuckled  also. 

"  I  wonder  how  he 's  managed  it  ?  "  he  laughed.  "  They 
would  n't  do  it  for  any  of  the  rest  of  us,  you  know,  though  I  've 
no  doubt  we  're  quite  as  deserving.  I  am,  I  know." 

Hutchinson  stopped  laughing  and  turned  on  Miss  Alicia. 

"  What 's  that  young  woman  comin'  down  here  for  ?  "  he  in 
quired. 

"  Lady  Joan  was  engaged  to  Mr.  James  Temple  Barholm," 
Miss  Alicia  answered. 

"Eh!  Eh!"  Hutchinson  jerked  out.  "That'll  turn  her 
into  a  wildcat,  I  '11  warrant.  She  '11  do  all  th'  harm  she  can. 
I  'm  much  obliged  to  you  for  lettin'  us  come,  ma'am.  I  want 
to  be  where  "I  can  stand  by  him." 

"  Father,"  said  Little  Ann,  "  what  you  have  got  to  remember 
is  that  you  must  n't  fly  into  a  passion.  You  know  you  've  al 
ways  said  it  never  did  any  good,  and  it  only  sends  the  blood 
to  your  head." 

"  You  are  not  nervous,  Miss  Hutchinson  ? "  the  duke  sug 
gested. 

"  About  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  ?  I  could  n't  be,  your  Grace. 
If  I  was  to  see  two  policemen  bringing  him  in  handcuffed  I 
should  n't  be  nervous.  I  should  know  the  handcuffs  did  n't  be 
long  to  him,  and  the  policemen  would  look  right-down  silly  to 
me." 

Miss  Alicia  fluttered  over  to  fold  her  in  her  arms. 

"  Do  let  me  kiss  you,"  she  said.     "  Do  let  me,  Little  Ann !  " 

Little  Ann  had  risen  at  once  to  meet  her  embrace.  She  put 
a  hand  on  her  arm. 


490  T.  TEMBAEOM 

"We  don't  know  anything  about  this  really,"  she  said. 
"  We  've  only  heard  what  people  say.  We  have  n't  heard  what 
he  says.  I  'm  going  to  wait."  They  were  all  looking  at  her, — 
the  duke  with  such  marked  interest  that  she  turned  toward 
him  as  she  ended.  "  And  if  I  had  to  wait  until  I  was  as  old  as 
grandmother  I  'd  wait  —  and  nothing  would  change  my  mind." 

"  And  I  Ve  been  lying  awake  at  night ! "  softly  wailed  Miss 
Alicia. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 


T  was  Mr.  Hutchinson  who,  having  an  eye 
on  the  window,  first  announced  an  arriving 
carriage. 

"  Some  of  'em 's  comin'  from  the  station," 
he  remarked.  "  There 's  no  young  woman 
with  'em,  that  I  can  see  from  here." 

"  I  thought  I  heard  wheels."     Miss  Alicia 
went   to    look   out,    agitatedly.     "  It   is   the 
gentlemen.     Perhaps     Lady     Joan — "     she 
turned   desperately   to  the   duke.     "  I   don't 
know  what  to  say  to  Lady  Joan.     I   don't 
know  what  she  will  say  to  me.     I  don't  know  what  she  is  coming 
for,  Little  Ann,  do  keep  near  me ! " 

It  was  a  pretty  thing  to  see  Little  Ann  stroke  her  hand  and 
soothe  her. 

"Don't  be  frightened,  Miss  Temple  Barholm.  All  you've 
got  to  do  is  to  answer  questions,"  she  said. 

"  But  I  might  say  things  that  would  be  wrong  —  things  that 
would  harm  him." 

"  No,  you  might  n't,  Miss  Temple  Barholm.  He 's  not  done 
anything  that  could  bring  harm  on  him." 

The  Duke  of  Stone,  who  had  seated  himself  in  T.  Tembarom's 
favorite  chair,  which  occupied  a  point  of  vantage,  seemed  to 
Mr.  Palford  and  Mr.  Grimby  when  they  entered  the  room  to 
wear  the  aspect  of  a  sort  of  presidiary  audience.  The  sight  of 
his  erect  head  and  clear-cut,  ivory-tinted  old  face,  with  its  alert, 
while  wholly  unbiased,  expression,  somewhat  startled  them  both. 
They  had  indeed  not  expected  to  see  him,  and  did  not  know 
why  he  had  chosen  to  come.  His  presence  might  mean  any 
one  of  several  things,  and  the  fact  that  he  enjoyed  a  reputation 
for  quite  alarming  astuteness  of  a  brilliant  kind  presented  ele- 

491 


492  T.  TEMBAROM 

merits  of  probable  embarrassment.  If  he  thought  that  they 
had  allowed  themselves  to  be  led  upon  a  wild-goose  chase, 
he  would  express  his  opinions  with  trying  readiness  of 
phrase. 

His  manner  of  greeting  them,  however,  expressed  no  more 
than  a  lightly  agreeable  detachment  from  any  view  whatsoever. 
Captain  Palliser  felt  this  curiously,  though  he  could  not  have 
said  what  he  would  have  expected  from  him  if  he  had  known 
it  would  be  his  whim  to  appear. 

"  How  do  you  do  ?  How  d'  you  do  ? "  His  Grace  shook 
hands  with  the  amiable  ease  which  scarcely  commits  a  man  even 
to  casual  interest,  after  which  he  took  his  seat  again. 

"How  d'  do,  Miss  Hutchinson?"  said  Palliser.  "How  d' 
do,  Mr.  Hutchinson?  Mr.  Palford  will  be  glad  to  find  you 
here." 

Mr.  Palford  shook  hands  with  correct  civility. 

"  I  am,  indeed,"  he  said.  "  It  was  in  your  room  in  New 
York  that  I  first  saw  Mr.  Temple  Temple  Barholm." 

"  Aye,  it  was,"  responded  Hutchinson,  dryly. 

"  I  thought  Lady  Joan  was  coming,"  Miss  Alicia  said  to  Pal 
liser. 

"  She  will  be  here  presently.  She  came  down  in  our  train, 
but  not  with  us." 

"  What  —  what  is  she  coming  for  ?  "  faltered  Miss  Alicia. 

"Yes,"  put  in  the  duke,  "what,  by  the  way,  is  she  coming 
for?" 

"  I  wrote  and  asked  her  to  come,"  was  Palliser's  reply.  "  I 
have  reason  to  believe  she  may  be  able  to  recall  something  of 
value  to  the  inquiry  which  is  being  made." 

"  That 's  interesting,"  said  his  Grace,  but  with  no  air  of 
participating  particularly.  "  She  does  n't  like  him,  though, 
does  she?  Wouldn't  do  to  put  her  on  the  jury." 

He  did  not  wait  for  any  reply,  but  turned  to  Mr.  Palford. 

"All  this  is  delightfully  portentous.  Do  you  know  it  re 
minds  me  of  a  scene  in  one  of  those  numerous  plays  where  the 
wrong  man  has  murdered  somebody  —  or  has  n't  murdered 
somebody  —  and  the  whole  company  must  be  cross-examined 
because  the  curtain  cannot  be  brought  down  until  the  right 


T.  TEMBAEOM  493 

man  is  unmasked.  Do  let  us  come  into  this,  Mr.  Palf ord ;  what 
we  know  seems  so  inadequate." 

Mr.  Palford  and  Mr.  Grimby  each  felt  that  there  lurked  in 
this  manner  a  possibility  that  they  were  being  regarded  lightly. 
All  the  objections  to  their  situation  loomed  annoyingly  large. 

"  It  is,  of  course,  an  extraordinary  story,"  Mr.  Palford  said, 
"but  if  we  are  not  mistaken  in  our  deductions,  we  may  find 
ourselves  involved  in  a  cause  cdtibre  which  will  set  all  England 
talking." 

"  I  am  not  mistaken,"  Palliser  presented  the  comment  with  a 
short  and  dry  laugh. 

"  Tha  seems  pretty  cock-sure ! "  Hutchinson  thrust  in. 

"I  am.  No  one  knew  Jem  Temple  Barholm  better  than  I 
did  in  the  past.  We  were  intimate  —  enemies."  And  he 
laughed  again. 

"  Tha  says  tha  '11  swear  th'  chap  tha  saw  through  th'  window 
was  him  ?  "  said  Hutchinson. 

"  I  'd  swear  it,"  with  composure. 

The  duke  was  reflecting.  He  was  again  tapping  with  his 
cane  the  gaiter  covering  his  slender,  shining  boot. 

"  If  Mr.  Temple  Temple  Barholm  had  remained  here  his  ac 
tions  would  have  seemed  less  suspicious  ?  "  he  suggested. 

It  was  Palliser  who  replied. 

"  Or  if  he  had  n't  whisked  the  other  man  away.  He  lost  his 
head  and  played  the  fool." 

"He  didn't  lose  his  head,  that  chap.  It's  screwed  on  th' 
right  way  —  his  head  is,"  grunted  Hutchinson. 

"  The  curious  fellow  has  a  number  of  friends,"  the  duke  re 
marked  to  Palford  and  Grimby,  in  his  impartial  tone.  "  I  am 
hoping  you  are  not  thinking  of  cross-examining  me.  I  have 
always  been  convinced  that  under  cross-examination  I  could  be 
induced  to  innocently  give  evidence  condemnatory  to  both  sides 
of  any  case  whatever.  But  would  you  mind  telling  me  what  the 
exact  evidence  is  so  far  ?  " 

Mr.  Palford  had  been  opening  a  budget  of  papers. 

"It  is  evidence  which  is  cumulative,  your  Grace,"  he  said. 
"Mr.  Temple  Temple  Barholm's  position  would  have  been  a 
far  less  suspicious  one  —  as  you  yourself  suggested  —  if  he  had 


494  T.  TEMBAEOM 

remained,  or  if  he  had  n't  secretly  removed  Mr. —  Mr.  Strange- 
ways." 

"  The  last  was  Captain  Palliser's  suggestion,  I  believe," 
smiled  the  duke.  "Did  he  remove  him  secretly?  How  se 
cretly,  for  instance  ?  " 

"At  night,"  answered  Palliser.  "Miss  Temple  Barholm 
herself  did  not  know  when  it  happened.  Did  you  ?  "  turning 
to  Miss  Alicia,  who  at  once  flushed  and  paled. 

"  He  knew  that  I  was  rather  nervous  where  Mr.  Strange- 
ways  was  concerned.  I  am  sorry  to  say  he  found  that  out  al 
most  at  once.  He  even  told  me  several  times  that  I  must  not 
think  of  him  —  that  I  need  hear  nothing  about  him."  She 
turned  to  the  duke,  her  air  of  appeal  plainly  representing  a  feel 
ing  that  he  would  understand  her  confession.  "  I  scarcely  like 
to  say  it,  but  wrong  as  it  was  I  could  n't  help  feeling  that  it 
was  like  having  a  —  a  lunatic  in  the  house.  I  was  afraid  he 
might  be  more  —  ill  —  than  Temple  realized,  and  that  he 
might  some  time  become  violent.  I  never  admitted  so  much 
of  course,  but  I  was." 

"You  see,  she  was  not  told,"  Palliser  summed  it  up  suc 
cinctly. 

"  Evidently,"  the  duke  admitted.  "  I  see  your  point."  But 
he  seemed  to  disengage  himself  from  all  sense  of  admitting  im 
plications  with  entire  calmness,  as  he  turned  again  to  Mr.  Pal- 
ford  and  his  papers. 

"  You  were  saying  that  the  exact  evidence  was  —  ?  " 

Mr.  Palford  referred  to  a  sheet  of  notes. 

"  That  —  whether  before  or  shortly  after  his  arrival  here  is 
not  at  all  certain  —  Mr.  Temple  Temple  Barholm  began 
strongly  to  suspect  the  identity  of  the  person  then  known  as 
Strangeways  — " 

Palliser  again  emitted  the  short  and  dry  laugh,  and  both  the 
duke  and  Mr.  Palford  looked  at  him  inquiringly. 

"  He  had  '  got  on  to '  it  before  he  brought  him,"  he  answered 
their  glances.  "  Be  sure  of  that." 

"  Then  why  did  he  bring  him  ?  "  the  duke  suggested  lightly. 

"  Oh,  well,"  taking  his  cue  from  the  duke,  and  assuming 
casual  lightness  also,  "  he  was  obliged  to  come  himself,  and  was 


T.  TEMBAEOM  495 

jolly  well  convinced  that  he  had  better  keep  his  hand  on  the 
man,  also  his  eye.  It  was  a  good-enough  idea.  He  couldn't 
leave  a  thing  like  that  wandering  about  the  States.  He 
could  play  benefactor  safely  in  a  house  of  the  size  of  this  until 
he  was  ready  for  action." 

The  duke  gave  a  moment  to  considering  the  matter  —  still 
detachedly. 

"  It  is,  on  the  whole,  not  unlikely  that  something  of  the  sort 
might  suggest  itself  to  the  criminal  mind/'  he  said.  And  his 
glance  at  Mr.  Palford  intimated  that  he  might  resume  his 
statement. 

"We  have  secured  proof  that  he  applied  himself  to  secret 
investigation.  He  is  known  to  have  employed  Scotland  Yard 
to  make  certain  inquiries  concerning  the  man  said  to  have  been 
killed  in  the  Klondike.  Having  evidently  reached  more  than 
suspicion  he  began  to  endeavor  to  persuade  Mr.  Strangeways  to 
let  him  take  him  to  London.  This  apparently  took  some  time. 
The  mere  suggestion  of  removal  threw  the  invalid  into  a  state 
of  painful  excitement — " 

"  Did  Pearson  tell  you  that  ?  "  'the  duke  inquired. 

"  Captain  Palliser  himself  in  passing  the  door  of  the  room 
one  day  heard  certain  expressions  of  terrified  pleading,"  was 
Mr.  Palford's  explanation. 

"I  heard  enough,"  Palliser  took  it  up  carelessly,  "to  make 
it  worth  while  to  question  Pearson  —  who  must  have  heard  a 
great  deal  more.  Pearson  was  ordered  to  hold  his  tongue  from 
the  first,  but  he  will  have  to  tell  the  truth  when  he  is  asked." 

The  duke  did  not  appear  to  resent  his  view. 

"  Pearson  would  be  likely  to  know  what  went  on,"  he  re 
marked.  "He's  an  intelligent  little  fellow." 

"  The  fact  remains  that  in  spite  of  his  distress  and  reluctance 
Mr.  Strangeways  was  removed  privately,  and  there  our  knowl 
edge  ends.  He  has  not  been  seen  since  —  and  a  few  hours 
after,  Captain  Palliser  expressed  his  conviction,  that  the  person 
he  had  seen  through  the  West  Room  window  was  Mr.  James 
Temple  Barholm,  Mr.  Temple  Temple  Barholm  left  the  house 
taking  a  midnight  train,  and  leaving  no  clue  as  to  his  where 
abouts  or  intentions." 


496  T.  TEMBAEOM 

"  Disappeared !  "  said  the  duke.  "  Where  has  he  been  looked 
for?" 

The  countenance  of  both  Mr.  Palford  and  his  party  expressed 
a  certain  degree  of  hesitance. 

"  Principally  in  asylums  and  so-called  sanatoriums,"  Mr. 
Grimby  admitted  with  a  hint  of  reluctance. 

"  Places  where  the  curiosity  of  outsiders  is  not  encouraged," 
said  Palliser  languidly.  "  And  where  if  a  patient  dies  in  a  fit 
of  mania  there  are  always  respectable  witnesses  to  explain  that 
his  case  was  hopeless  from  the  first." 

Mr.  Hutchinson  had  been  breathing  hard  occasionally  as  he 
sat  and  listened,  and  now  he  sprang  up  uttering  a  sound  dan 
gerously  near  a  violent  snort. 

"  Art  tha  accusin'  that  lad  o'  bein'  black  villain  enough  to  be 
ready  to  do  bloody  murder  ?  "  he  cried  out. 

"  He  was  in  a  very  tight  place,  Hutchinson,"  Palliser 
shrugged  his  shoulders  as  he  said  it.  "But  one  makes  sug 
gestions  at  this  stage  —  not  accusations." 

That  Hutchinson  had  lost  his  head  was  apparent  to  his 
daughter  at  least. 

"  Tha  'd  be  in  a  tight  place,  my  fine  chap,  if  I  had  my  way," 
he  flung  forth  irately.  "  I  'd  like  to  get  thy  head  under  my 
arm." 

The  roll  of  approaching  wheels  reached  Miss  Alicia. 

"  There's  another  carriage,"  was  her  agitated  exclamation. 
"  Oh,  dear !  It  must  be  Lady  Joan !  " 

Little  Ann  left  her  seat  to  make  her  father  return  to  his. 

"  Father,  you  'd  better  sit  down,"  she  said,  gently  pushing 
him  in  the  right  direction.  "  When  you  can't  prove  a  thing 's 
a  lie,  it's  just  as  well  to  keep  quiet  until  you  can."  And  she 
kept  quiet  herself,  though  she  turned  and  stood  before  Palliser 
and  spoke  with  clear  deliberateness.  "  What  you  pretend  to  be 
lieve  is  not  true,  Captain  Palliser.  It's  just  not  true,"  she 
gave  to  him. 

They  were  facing  and  looking  at  each  other  when  Burrill  an 
nounced  Lady  Joan  Fayre.  She  entered  rather  quickly  and 
looked  round  the  room  with  a  sweeping  glance,  taking  them 
all  in.  She  went  to  the  duke  first,  and  they  shook  hands. 


T.  TEMBAROM  497 

"  I  am  glad  you  are  here ! "  she  said. 

"  I  would  not  have  been  out  of  it,  my  dear  young  lady/'  he 
answered,  "  '  for  a  farm/  That 's  a  quotation." 

"  I  know,"  she  replied,  giving  her  hand  to  Miss  Alicia,  and 
taking  in  Palliser  and  the  solicitors  with  a  bow  which  was  little 
more  than  a  nod.  Then  she  saw  Little  Ann,  and  walked  over 
to  her  to  shake  hands. 

"  I  am  glad  you  are  here.  I  rather  felt  you  would  be,"  was 
her  greeting.  "  I  am  glad  to  see  you." 

"  Whether  tha  'rt  glad  to  see  me  or  not  I  'm  glad  I  'm  here," 
said  Hutchinson  bluntly.  "  I  've  just  been  speaking  a  bit  o'  my 
mind." 

"  Now,  Father  love ! "    Little  Ann  put  her  hand  on  his  arm. 

Lady  Joan  looked  him  over.  Her  hungry  eyes  were  more 
hungry  than  ever.  She  looked  like  a  creature  in  a  fever  and 
worn  by  it. 

"  I  think  I  am  glad  you  are  here  too,"  she  answered. 

Palliser  sauntered  over  to  her.  He  had  approved  the  duke's 
air  of  being  at  once  detached  and  inquiring,  and  he  did  not 
intend  to  wear  the  aspect  of  the  personage  who  plays  the  un 
pleasant  part  of  the  pursuer  and  avenger.  What  he  said  was: 

"  It  was  good  of  you  to  come,  Lady  Joan." 

"  Did  you  think  I  would  stay  away  ? "  was  her  answer. 
"  But  I  will  tell  you  that  I  don't  believe  it  is  true." 

"You  think  that  it  is  too  good  to  be  true?" 

Her  hot  eyes  had  records  in  them  it  would  have  been  impos 
sible  for  him  to  read  or  understand.  She  had  been  so  torn ;  she 
had  passed  through  such  hours  since  she  had  been  told  this  wild 
thing. 

"  Pardon  my  not  telling  you  what  I  think,"  she  said. 
"  Nothing  matters,  after  all,  if  he  is  alive ! " 

"  Except  that  we  must  find  him,"  said  Palliser. 

"If  he  is  in  the  same  world  with  me  I  shall  find  him," 
fiercely.  Then  she  turned  again  to  Ann.  "  You  are  the  girl 
T.  Tembarom  loves  ?  "  she  put  it  to  her. 

"  Yes,  my  lady." 

"If  he  was  lost,  and  you  knew  he  was  on  the  earth  with 
you,  don't  you  know  that  you  would  find  him  ?  " 


498  T.  TEMBAEOM 

"  I  should  know  he  'd  come  back  to  me/*  Little  Ann  answered 
her.  "  That 's  what  — "  her  small  face  looked  very  fine  as  in 
her  second  of  hesitation  a  spirited  flush  ran  over  it,  "that's 
what  your  man  will  do,"  quite  firmly. 

It  was  amazing  to  see  how  the  bitter  face  changed,  as  if  one 
word  had  brought  back  a  passionate  softening  memory. 

"  My  man !  "  Her  voice  mellowed  until  it  was  deep  and  low. 
"Did  you  call  T.  Tembarom  that,  too?  Oh,  I  understand  you! 
Keep  near  me  while  I  talk  to  these  people."  She  made  her  sit 
down  by  her. 

"  I  know  every  detail  of  your  letters."  She  addressed  Pal- 
liser  as  well  as  Palford  &  Grimby,  sweeping  all  details  aside. 
"  What  is  it  you  want  to  ask  me  ?  " 

"  This  is  our  position,  your  ladyship,"  Mr.  Palford  fumbled  a 
little  with  his  papers  in  speaking.  "  Mr.  Temple  Temple  Bar- 
holm  and  the  person  known  as  Mr.  Strangeways  have  been 
searched  for  so  far  without  result.  In  the  meantime  we  realize 
that  the  more  evidence  we  obtain  that  Mr.  Temple  Temple  Bar- 
holm  identified  Strangeways  and  acted  from  motive,  the  more 
solid  the  foundation  upon  which  Captain  Palliser's  conviction 
rests.  Up  to  this  point  we  have  only  his  statement  which  he 
is  prepared  to  make  on  oath.  Fortunately,  however,  he  on  one 
occasion  overheard  something  said  to  you  which  he  believes 
will  be  corroborative  evidence." 

"  What  did  you  overhear  ?  "  she  inquired  of  Palliser. 

Her  tone  was  not  pacific  considering  that,  logically,  she  must 
be  on  the  side  of  the  investigators.  But  it  was  her  habit,  as 
Captain  Palliser  remembered,  to  seem  to  put  most  people  on 
the  defensive.  He  meant  to  look  as  uninvolved  as  the  duke, 
but  it  was  not  quite  within  his  power.  His  manner  was  suf 
ficiently  deliberate. 

"  One  evening,  before  you  left  for  London,  I  was  returning 
from  the  billiard-room,  and  heard  you  engaged  in  animated  con 
versation  with  —  our  host.  My  attention  was  arrested,  first 
because  — "  a  sketch  of  a  smile  ill-concealed  itself,  "  you  usually 
scarcely  deigned  to  speak  to  him,  and  secondly  because  I  heard 
Jem  Temple  Barholm's  name." 


T.  TEMBAEOM  499 

"  And  you  —  ?  "  neither  eyes  nor  manner  omitted  the  word 
listened. 

But  the  slight  lift  of  his  shoulders  was  indifferent  enough. 

"  I  listened  deliberately.  I  was  convinced  that  the  fellow 
was  a  criminal  impostor,  and  I  wanted  evidence." 

"  Ah !  come  now,"  remarked  the  duke  amiably.  "  Now  we 
are  getting  on.  Did  you  gain  any  ?  " 

"  I  thought  so.  Merely  of  the  cumulative  order,  of  course," 
Palliser  answered  with  moderation.  "  Those  were  early  days. 
He  asked  you,"  turning  to  Lady  Joan  again,  "  if  you  knew  any 
one  —  any  one  —  who  had  any  sort  of  a  photograph  of  Jem. 
You  had  one  and  you  showed  it  to  him ! " 

She  was  quite  silent  for  a  moment.  The  hour  came  back  to 
her  —  the  extraordinary  hour  when  he  had  stood  in  his  loung 
ing  fashion  before  her,  and  through  some  odd,  uncivilized  but 
absolutely  human  force  of  his  own  had  made  her  listen  to  him 
—  and  had  gone  on  talking  in  his  nasal  voice  until  with  one 
common,  crude,  grotesque  phrase  he  had  turned  her  hideous 
world  upside  down  —  changed  the  whole  face  of  it — sent  the 
stone  wall  rising  before  her  crumbling  into  dust,  and  seemed 
somehow  to  set  her  free.  For  the  moment  he  had  lifted  a  load 
from  her  the  nature  of  which  she  did  not  think  he  could  under 
stand —  a  load  of  hatred  and  silence.  She  had  clutched  his 
hand,  she  had  passionately  wept  on  it,  she  could  have  kissed  it. 
He  had  told  her  she  could  come  back  and  not  be  afraid.  As  the 
strange  episode  rose  before  her  detail  by  detail,  she  literally 
stared  at  Palliser. 

"  You  did,  did  n't  you  ?  "  he  inquired. 

"  Yes/'  she  answered. 

Her  mind  was  in  a  riot,  because  in  the  midst  of  things  which 
must  be  true,  something  was  false.  But  with  the  memory  of 
a  myriad  subtle  duplicities  in  her  brain,  she  had  never  seen 
anything  which  could  have  approached  a  thing  like  that.  He 
had  made  her  feel  more  human  than  any  one  in  the  world  had 
ever  made  her  feel  —  but  Jem.  He  had  been  able  to  do  it 
because  he  was  human  himself  —  human.  "  I  'm  friendly,"  he 
had  said  with  his  boy's  laugh — "just  friendly." 


500  T.  TEMBAROM 

"  I  saw  him  start,  though  you  did  not,"  Palliser  continued. 
"He  stood  and  studied  the  locket  intently." 

She  remembered  perfectly.  He  had  examined  it  so  closely 
that  he  had  unconsciously  knit  his  brows. 

"  He  said  something  in  a  rather  low  voice,"  Palliser  took  it 
up.  "  I  could  not  quite  catch  it  all.  It  was  something  about 
'  knowing  the  face  again.'  I  can  see  you  remember,  Lady  Joan. 
Can  you  repeat  the  exact  words  ?  " 

He  did  not  understand  the  struggle  he  saw  in  her  face.  It 
would  have  been  impossible  for  him  to  understand  it.  What 
she  felt  was  that  if  she  lost  hold  on  her  strange  belief  in  the 
honesty  of  this  one  decent  thing  she  had  seen  and  felt  so  close 
to  her  that  it  cleared  the  air  she  breathed,  it  would  be  as  if  she 
had  fallen  into  a  bottomless  abyss.  Without  knowing  why  she 
did  it,  she  got  up  from  her  chair  as  if  she  were  a  witness  in  a 
court. 

"  Yes,  I  can,"  she  said.  "  Yes,  I  can ;  but  I  wish  to  make  a 
statement  for  myself.  Whether  Jem  Temple  Barholm  is  alive 
or  dead,  Captain  Palliser,  T.  Tembarom  has  done  him  no  harm." 

The  duke  sat  up  delicately  alert.  He  had  evidently  found 
her  worth  looking  at  and  listening  to  from  the  outset. 

"  Hear !     Hear !  "  he  said  pleasantly. 

"  What  were  the  exact  words  ?  "  suggested  Palliser. 

Miss  Alicia  who  had  been  weeping  on  Little  Ann's  shoulder 
—  almost  on  her  lap  —  lifted  her  head  to  listen.  Hutchinson 
set  his  jaw  and  grunted,  and  Mr.  Palford  cleared  his  throat 
mechanically. 

"  He  said,"  and  no  one  better  than  herself  realized  how 
ominously  "  cumulative  "  the  words  sounded,  "  that  a  man  would 
know  a  face  like  that  again  —  wherever  he  saw  it." 

"  Wherever  he  saw  it ! "  ejaculated  Mr.  Grimby. 

There  ensued  a  moment  of  entire  pause.  It  was  inevitable. 
Having  reached  this  point  a  taking  of  breath  was  necessary. 
Even  the  duke  ceased  to  appear  entirely  detached.  As  Mr. 
Palford  turned  to  his  papers  again  there  was  perhaps  a  slight 
feeling  of  awkwardness  in  the  air.  Miss  Alicia  had  dropped, 
terror  smitten,  into  new  tears. 

The  slight  awkwardness  was,  on  the  whole,  rather  added  to 


T.  TEMBAROM  501 

by  T.  Tembarom  —  as  if  serenely  introduced  by  the  hand  of 
drama  itself  —  opening  the  door  and  walking  into  the  room. 
He  came  in  with  a  matter-of-fact,  but  rather  obstinate,  air,  and 
stopped  in  their  midst,  looking  round  at  them  as  if  collectedly 
taking  them  all  in. 

Hutchinson  sprang  to  his  feet  with  a  kind  of  roar,  his  big 
hands  plunging  deep  into  his  trousers  pockets. 

"  Here  lie  is !  Danged  if  he  is  n't !  "  he  bellowed.  "  Now, 
lad,  tha  let  'em  have  it !  " 

What  he  was  to  let  them  have  did  not  ensue,  because  his  at 
titude  was  not  one  of  assault. 

"  Say,  you  are  all  here,  ain't  you ! "  he  remarked  obviously. 
"  Good  business !  " 

Miss  Alicia  got  up  from  the  sofa  and  came  trembling  toward 
him  as  one  approaches  one  risen  from  the  dead,  and  he  made 
a  big  stride  toward  her  and  took  her  in  his  arms,  patting  her 
shoulder  in  reproachful  consolation. 

"  Say,  you  have  n't  done  what  I  told  you  —  have  you  ?  "  he 
soothed.  "You've  let  yourself  get  rattled." 

"  But  I  knew  it  was  n't  true,"  she  sobbed.  "  I  knew  it 
was  n't." 

"  Of  course  you  did,  but  you  got  rattled  all  the  same."  And 
he  patted  her  again. 

The  duke  came  forward  with  a  delightfully  easy  and  —  could 
it  be  almost  jocose  ?  —  air  of  bearing  himself.  Palf ord  and 
Grimby  remarked  it  with  pained  dismay.  He  was  so  unswerv 
ing  in  his  readiness  as  he  shook  hands. 

"  How  well  done  of  you !  "  he  said.  "  How  well  arranged ! 
But  I  'm  afraid  you  did  n't  arrange  it  at  all.  It  has  merely  hap 
pened.  Where  did  you  come  from  ?  " 

"  From  America ;  got  back  yesterday."  T.  Tembarom's 
hand-shake  was  a  robust  hearty  greeting.  "It's  all  right." 

"  From  America ! "  The  united  voices  of  the  solicitors  ex 
claimed  it. 

Joseph  Hutchinson  broke  into  a  huge  guffaw,  and  he  stamped 
in  exultation. 

"  I  'm  danged  if  he  has  na'  been  to  America ! "  he  cried  out. 
"  To  America !  " 


502  T.  TEMBAROM 

"  Oh !  "  Miss  Alicia  gasped  hysterically,  "  they  go  backward 
and  forward  to  America  like  —  like  lightning !  " 

Little  Ann  had  not  risen  at  his  entrance,  but  sat  still  with 
her  hands  clasped  tightly  on  her  lap.  Her  face  had  somehow 
the  effect  of  a  flower  gradually  breaking  into  extraordinary 
bloom.  Their  eyes  had  once  met  and  then  she  remained,  her 
soul  in  hers  which  were  upon  him,  as  she  drank  in  every  word  he 
uttered.  Her  time  had  not  yet  come. 

Lady  Joan  had  remained  standing  by  the  chair,  which  a  few 
moments  before  her  manner  had  seemed  to  transform  into  some 
thing  like  a  witness  stand  in  a  court  of  justice.  Her  hungry 
eyes  had  grown  hungrier  each  second,  and  her  breath  came  and 
went  quickly.  The  very  face  she  had  looked  up  at  on  her  last 
talk  with  T.  Tembarom  —  the  oddly  human  face — turned  on 
her  as  he  came  to  her.  It  was  just  as  it  had  been  that  night 
—  just  as  commonly  uncommon  and  believable. 

"  Say,  Lady  Joan !  You  did  n't  believe  all  that  guff,  did 
you  —  You  did  n't  ?  "  he  said. 

"  No  —  no  —  no !     I  could  n't !  "  she  cried  fiercely. 

He  saw  she  was  shaking  with  suspense,  and  he  pushed  her 
gently  into  a  chair. 

"You'd  better  sit  down  a  minute.  You're  about  all  in," 
he  said. 

She  might  have  been  a  woman  with  an  ague  as  she  caught 
his  arm,  shaking  it  because  her  hands  themselves  so  shook. 

"  Is  it  true  ?  "  was  her  low  cry.     "  Is  he  alive  —  is  he  alive  ?  " 

"  Yes,  he 's  alive."  And  as  he  answered  he  drew  close  and 
so  placed  himself  before  her  that  he  shielded  her  from  the  others 
in  the  room.  He  seemed  to  manage  to  shut  them  out,  so  that 
when  she  dropped  her  face  on  her  arms  against  the  chair-back 
her  shuddering,  silent  sobbing  was  hidden  decently.  It  was  not 
only  his  body  which  did  it,  but  some  protecting  power  which 
was  almost  physically  visible.  She  felt  it  spread  before  her. 
"Yes,  he's  alive,"  he  said,  "and  he's  all  right  —  though  it's 
been  a  long  time  coming,  by  gee ! " 

"He's  alive."  They  all  heard  it.  For  a  man  of  Palliser's 
make  to  stand  silent  in  the  midst  of  mysterious  slowly  accumu 
lating  convictions  that  some  one  —  perilously  of  his  own  rarely 


T.  TEMBAROM  503 

inept  type  —  was  on  the  verge  of  feeling  appallingly  like  a  fool 
—  was  momentarily  unendurable.  And  nothing  had  been  ex 
plained,  after  all. 

"  Is  this  what  you  call  '  bluff '  in  New  York  ?  "  he  demanded. 
"  You  've  got  a  lot  to  explain.  You  admit  that  Jem  Temple 
Barholm  is  alive  ? "  and  realized  his  asinine  error  before  the 
words  were  fully  spoken. 

The  realization  was  the  result  of  the  square-shouldered  swing 
with  which  T.  Tembarom  turned  round,  and  the  expression  of 
his  eyes  as  they  ran  over  him. 

"Admit!"  he  said.  "Admit  hell  I  He's  up-stairs,"  with 
a  slight  jerk  of  his  head  in  the  direction  of  the  ceiling. 

The  duke  alone  did  not  gasp.     He  laughed  slightly. 

"We've  just  got  here.  He  came  down  from  London  with 
me,  and  Sir  Ormsby  Galloway."  And  he  said  it  not  to  Palliser 
but  to  Palford  and  Grimby. 

"  The  Sir  Ormsby  Galloway?"  It  was  an  ejaculation  from 
Mr.  Palford  himself. 

T.  Tembarom  stood  square  and  gave  his  explanation  to  the 
lot  of  them,  so  to  speak,  without  distinction. 

"  He's  the  big  nerve  specialist.  I  've  had  him  looking  after 
the  case  from  the  first — 'before  I  began  to  suspect  anything. 
I  took  orders,  and  orders  were  to  keep  him  quiet  and  not  let 
any  fool  butt  in  and  excite  him.  That 's  what  I  've  been  giving 
my  mind  to.  The  great  stunt  was  to  get  him  to  go  and  stay 
at  Sir  Ormsby's  place."  He  stopped  a  moment  and  suddenly 
flared  forth  as  if  he  had  had  about  enough  of  it.  He  almost 
shouted  at  them  in  exasperation.  "  All  I  'm  going  to  tell  you 
is  that  for  about  six  months  I  've  been  trying  to  prove  that  Jem 
Temple  Barholm  was  Jem  Temple  Barholm,  and  the  hardest 
thing  I  had  to  do  was  to  get  him  so  that  he  could  prove  it  him 
self."  He  strode  over  to  the  hearth  and  rang  a  bell.  "  It 's 
not  my  place  to  give  orders  here  now,"  he  said,  "  but  Jem  com 
missioned  me  to  see  this  thing  through.  Sir  Ormsby '11  tell 
you  all  you  want  to  hear." 

He  turned  and  spoke  solely  to  the  duke. 

"  This  is  what  happened,"  he  said.  "  I  dare  say  you  '11  laugh 
when  you  hear  it.  I  almost  laughed  myself.  What  does  Jem 


504  T.  TEMBABOM 

do,  when  he  thinks  things  over,  but  get  some  fool  notion  in 
his  head  about  not  coming  back  here  and  pushing  me  out. 
And  he  lights  out  and  leaves  the  country  —  leaves  it  —  to  get 
time  to  think  it  over  some  more/' 

The  duke  did  not  laugh.  He  merely  smiled  —  a  smile  which 
had  a  shade  of  curious  self-questioning  in  it. 

"Komantic  and  emotional  —  and  quite  ridiculous,"  he  com 
mented  slowly.  "He'd  have  awakened  to  that  when  he  had 
thought  it  out  '  some  more/  The  thing  could  n't  be  done." 

Burrill  had  presented  himself  in  answer  to  the  bell,  and 
awaited  orders.  His  Grace  called  Tembarom's  attention  to  him, 
and  Tembarom  included  Palliser  with  Palf  ord  and  Grimby  when 
he  gave  his  gesture  of  instruction. 

"  Take  these  gentlemen  to  Sir  Ormsby  Galloway,  and  then 
ask  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  if  he  '11  come  down-stairs,"  he  said. 

It  is  possible  that  Captain  Palliser  felt  himself  more  irritat- 
ingly  infolded  in  the  swathing  realization  that  some  one  was 
in  a  ridiculous  position,  and  it  is  certain  that  Mr.  Palford  felt 
it  necessary  to  preserve  an  outwardly  flawless  dignity  as  the 
duke  surprisingly  left  his  chair  and  joined  them. 

"  Let  me  go,  too,"  he  suggested ;  "  I  may  be  able  to  assist  in 
throwing  light."  His  including  movement  in  Miss  Alicia's 
direction  was  delightfully  gracious  and  friendly.  It  was  inclu 
sive  of  Mr.  Hutchinson  also. 

"Will  you  come  with  us,  Miss  Temple  Barholm?"  he  said. 
"  And  you  too,  Mr.  Hutchinson.  We  shall  go  over  it  all  in  its 
most  interesting  detail,  and  you  must  be  eager  about  it.  I  am 
myself." 

His  happy  and  entirely  correct  idea  was  that  the  impending 
entrance  of  Mr.  James  Temple  Barholm  would  "  come  off  "  bet 
ter  in  the  absence  of  audience. 

Hutchinson  almost  bounced  from  his  chair  in  his  readiness. 
Miss  Alicia  looked  at  Tembarom. 

"Yes,  Miss  Alicia,"  he  answered  her  inquiring  glance. 
"  You  go,  too.  You  '11  get  it  all  over  quicker." 

Eigid  propriety  forbade  that  Mr.  Palford  should  express  an 
noyance,  but  the  effort  to  restrain  the  expression  of  it  was  in 
his  countenance.  Was  it  possible  that  the  American  habit  of 


T.  TEMBAKOM  505 

being  jocular  had  actually  held  its  own  in  a  matter  as  serious 
as  this?  And  could  even  the  most  cynical  and  light-minded 
of  ducal  personages  have  been  involved  in  its  unworthy  friv 
olities?  But  no  one  looked  jocular  —  Tembarom's  jaw  was  set 
in  its  hard  line,  and  the  duke,  taking  up  the  broad  ribbon  of  his 
rimless  monocle  to  fix  the  glass  in  his  eye,  wore  the  expression 
of  a  man  whose  sense  of  humor  was  temporarily  in  abeyance. 

"Are  we  to  understand  that  your  Grace  —  ?" 

"  Yes/'  said  his  Grace  a  trifle  curtly,  "  I  have  known  about  it 
for  some  time." 

"  But  why  was  nobody  told  ?  "  put  in  Palliser. 

"  Why  should  people  be  told  ?  There  was  nothing  sufficiently 
definite  to  tell.  It  was  a  waiting  game."  His  Grace  wasted  no 
words.  "  I  was  told.  Mr.  Temple  Barholm  did  not  know  Eng 
land  or  English  methods.  His  idea  —  perhaps  a  mistaken  one 
—  was  that  an  English  duke  ought  to  be  able  to  advise  him. 
He  came  to  me  and  made  a  clean  breast  of  it.  He  goes  straight 
at  things,  that  young  fellow.  Makes  what  he  calls  a  '  bee  line.' 
Oh !  I  've  been  in  it  —  I  've  been  in  it,  I  assure  you." 

It  was  as  they  crossed  the  hall  that  his  Grace  slightly 
laughed. 

"  It  struck  me  as  a  sort  of  wild-goose  chase  at  first.  He  had 
only  a  ghost  of  a  clue  —  a  mere  resemblance  to  a  portrait.  But 
he  believed  in  it,  and  he  had  an  instinct."  He  laughed  again. 
"  The  dullest  and  most  unmelodramatic  neighborhood  in  Eng 
land  has  been  taking  part  in  a  melodrama  —  but  there  has  been 
no  villain  in  it  —  only  a  matter-of-fact  young  man,  working 
out  a  queer  thing  in  his  own  queer,  matter-of-fact  way." 

When  the  door  closed  behind  them,  Tembarom  went  to  Lady 
Joan.  She  had  risen  and  was  standing  before  the  window,  her 
back  to  the  room.  She  looked  tall  and  straight  and  tensely 
braced  when  she  turned  round,  but  there  was  endurance,  not 
fierceness  in  her  eyes. 

"  Did  he  leave  the  country  knowing  I  was  here  —  waiting  ?  " 
she  asked.  Her  voice  was  low  and  fatigued.  She  had  remem 
bered  that  years  had  passed,  and  that  it  was  perhaps  after  all 
only  human  that  long  anguish  should  blot  things  out,  and  dull 
a  hopeless  man's  memory. 


506  T.  TEMBAKOM 

"No,"  answered  Tembarom  sharply.  "He  didn't.  You 
were  n't  in  it  then.  He  believed  you  'd  married  that  Duke  of 
Merthshire  fellow.  This  is  the  way  it  was:  Let  me  tell  it  to 
you  quick.  A  letter  that  had  been  wandering  round  came  to 
him  the  night  before  the  cave-in,  when  they  thought  he  was 
killed.  It  told  him  old  Temple  Barholm  was  dead.  He  started 
out  before  daylight,  and  you  can  bet  he  was  strung  up  till  he 
was  near  crazy  with  excitement.  He  believed  that  if  he  was  in 
England  with  plenty  of  money  he  could  track  down  that  card- 
sharp  lie.  He  believed  you  'd  help  him.  Somewhere,  while  he 
was  traveling  he  came  across  an  old  paper  with  a  lot  of  dope 
about  your  being  engaged." 

Joan  remembered  well  how  her  mother  had  worked  to  set  the 
story  afloat  —  how  they  had  gone  through  the  most  awful  of 
their  scenes  —  almost  raving  at  each  other,  shut  up  together  in 
the  boudoir  in  Hill  Street. 

"That's  all  he  remembers,  except  that  he  thought  some  one 
had  hit  him  a  crack  on  the  head.  Nothing  had  hit  him.  He  'd 
had  too  much  to  stand  up  under  and  something  gave  way  in  his 
brain.  He  does  n't  know  what  happened  after  that.  He  'd 
wake  up  sometimes  just  enough  to  know  he  was  wandering  about 
trying  to  get  home.  It 's  been  the  limit  to  try  to  track  him.  If 
he  'd  not  come  to  himself  we  could  never  have  been  quite  sure. 
That's  why  I  stuck  at  it.  But  he  did  come  to  himself.  All 
of  a  sudden.  Sir  Ormsby  will  tell  you  that's  what  nearly  al 
ways  happens.  They  wake  up  all  of  a  sudden.  It 's  all  right ; 
it's  all  right.  I  used  to  promise  him  it  would  be  —  when  I 
wasn't  sure  that  I  wasn't  lying."  And  for  the  first  time 
he  broke  into  the  friendly  grin  —  but  it  was  more  valiant 
than  spontaneous.  He  wanted  her  to  know  that  it  was  "  all 
right." 

"Oh!"  she  cried,  "oh!  you—" 

She  stopped  because  the  door  was  opening. 

"It's  Jem,"  he  said  sharply.  "Ann,  let's  go."  And  that 
instant  Little  Ann  was  near  him. 

"  No !  no !  don't  go,"  cried  Lady  Joan. 

Jem  Temple  Barholm  came  in  through  the  doorway.  Life 
and  sound  and  breath  stopped  for  a  second,  and  then  the  two 


T.  TEMBAKOM  507 

whirled  into  each  other's  arms  as  if  a  storm  had  swept  them 
there. 

"Jem!"  she  wailed.  "Oh,  Jem!  My  man!  Where  have 
you  been?" 

"  I  've  been  in  hell,  Joan  —  in  hell !  "  he  answered,  choking, 
— "and  this  wonderful  fellow  has  dragged  me  out  of  it." 

But  Tembarom  would  have  none  of  it.  He  could  not  stand 
it.  This  sort  of  thing  filled  up  his  throat  and  put  him  at  an 
overwhelming  disadvantage.  He  just  laid  a  hand  on  Jem 
Temple  Barholm's  shoulder  and  gave  him  an  awkwardly  friendly 
push. 

"  Say,  cut  me  out  of  it ! "  he  said.  "  You  get  busy,"  his 
voice  rather  breaking.  "You've  got  a  lot  to  say  to  her.  It 
was  up  to  me  before ;  —  now,  it 's  up  to  you." 

Little  Ann  went  with  him  into  the  next  room. 

The  room  they  went  into  was  a  smaller  one,  quiet,  and  its  oriel 
windows  much  overshadowed  by  trees.  By  the  time  they  stood 
together  in  the  center  of  it  Tembarom  had  swallowed  something 
twice  or  thrice,  and  had  recovered  himself.  Even  his  old  smile 
had  come  back  as  he  took  one  of  her  hands  in  each  of  his,  and 
holding  them  wide  apart  stood  and  looked  down  at  her. 

"  God  bless  you,  Little  Ann,"  he  said.  "  I  just  knew  I  should 
find  you  here.  I  'd  have  bet  my  last  dollar  on  it." 

The  hands  he  held  were  trembling  just  a  little,  and  the 
dimples  quivered  in  and  out.  But  her  eyes  were  steady,  and  a 
lovely  increasing  intensity  glowed  in  them. 

"You  went  after  him  and  brought  him  back.  He  was  all 
wrought  up,  and  he  needed  some  one  with  good  common  sense 
to  stop  him  in  time  to  make  him  think  straight  before  he  did 
anything  silly,"  she  said. 

"  I  says  to  him,"  T.  Tembarom  made  the  matter  clear ; 
" '  Say,  you  've  left  something  behind  that  belongs  to  you ! 
Come  back  and  get  it.'  I  meant  Lady  Joan.  And  I  says,  '  Good 
Lord,  man,  you're  acting  like  a  fellow  in  a  play.  That  place 
does  n't  belong  to  me.  It  belongs  to  you.  If  it  was  mine,  fair 
and  square,  Little  Willie  'd  hang  on  to  it.  There  'd  be  no  noble 
sacrifice  in  his.  You  get  a  brace  on.' ': 


508  T.  TEMBAEOM 

"When  they  were  talking  in  that  silly  way  about  you,  and 
saying  you'd  run  away/'  said  Little  Ann,  her  face  uplifted 
adoringly  as  she  talked,  "  I  said  to  father,  '  If  he  's  gone,  he 's 
gone  to  get  something.  And  he  '11  be  likely  to  bring  it  back.' " 

He  almost  dropped  her  hands  and  caught  her  to  him  then. 
But  he  saved  himself  in  time. 

"  Now  this  great  change  has  come,"  he  said,  "  everything  will 
be  different.  The  men  you  '11  know  will  look  like  the  pictures 
in  the  advertisements  at  the  backs  of  magazines  —  those  fellows 
with  chins  and  smooth  hair.  I  shall  look  like  a  chauffeur  among 
them." 

But  she  did  not  blench  in  the  least,  though  she  remembered 
whose  words  he  was  quoting.  The  intense  and  lovely  femininity 
in  her  eyes  only  increased.  She  came  closer  to  him,  and  so 
because  of  his  height  had  to  look  up  more. 

"You  will  always  make  jokes  —  but  I  don't  care.  I  don't 
care  for  anything  but  you,"  she  said.  "I  love  your  jokes;  I 
love  everything  about  you:  I  love  your  eyes  —  and  your  voice 
—  and  your  laugh.  I  love  your  very  clothes."  Her  voice 
quivered  as  her  dimples  did.  "  These  last  months  I  've  some 
times  felt  as  if  I  should  die  of  loving  you." 

It  was  a  wonderful  thing  —  wonderful.  His  eyes  —  his 
whole  young  being  had  kindled  as  he  looked  down  drinking  in 
every  word. 

"  Is  that  the  kind  of  quiet  little  thing  you  are  ?  "  he  said. 

"  Yes,  it  is,"  she  answered  firmly. 

"And  you're  satisfied  —  you  know,  who  it  is  I  want? — • 
You  're  ready  to  do  what  you  said  you  would  that  last  night  at 
Mrs.  Bowse's  ?  " 

"  What  do  you  think  ?  "  she  said  in  her  clear  little  voice. 

He  caught  her  then  in  a  strong,  hearty,  young,  joyous  clutch. 

"  You  come  to  me,  Little  Ann.  You  come  right  to  me,"  he 
said. 


CHAPTER  XL 


ANY  an  honest  penny  was  turned,  with 
the  assistance  of  the  romantic  Temple 
Barholm  case,  by  writers  of  paragraphs 
for  newspapers  published  in  the  United 
States.  It  was  not  merely  a  romance 
which  belonged  to  England  but  was  ex 
citingly  linked  to  America  by  the  fact 
that  its  hero  regarded  himself  as  an 
American,  and  had  passed  through  all 
the  picturesque  episodes  of  a  most  de 
sirably  struggling  youth  in  the  very 
streets  of  New  York  itself,  and  had 
"  worked  his  way  up "  to  the  proud 

position  of  society  reporter  "  on"  a  huge  Sunday  paper.  It  was 
generally  considered  to  redound  largely  to  his  credit  that 
refusing  "  in  spite  of  all  temptations  to  belong  to  other  nations," 
he  had  been  born  in  Brooklyn,  that  he  had  worn  ragged  clothes 
and  shoes  with  holes  in  them,  that  he  had  blacked  other  people's 
shoes,  run  errands,  and  sold  newspapers  there.  If  he  had  been 
a  mere  English  young  man,  one  recounting  of  his  romance 
would  have  disposed  of  him;  but  as  he  was  presented  to  the 
newspaper  public  every  characteristic  lent  itself  to  elaboration. 
He  was,  in  fact,  flaringly  anecdotal.  As  a  newly  elected  Presi 
dent  who  has  made  boots  or  driven  a  canal-boat  in  his  uncon- 
sidered  youth  endears  himself  indescribably  to  both  paragraph 
reader  and  paragraph  purveyor,  so  did  T.  Tembarom  endear 
himself.  For  weeks,  he  was  a  perennial  fount.  What  quite 
credible  story  cannot  be  related  of  a  hungry  lad  who  is  wildly 
flung  by  chance  into  immense  fortune  and  the  laps  of  dukes,  so 
to  speak?  The  feeblest  imagination  must  be  stirred  by  the 
high  color  of  such  an  episode,  and  stimulated  to  superb  effort. 

509 


510  T.  TEMBAROM 

Until  the  public  had  become  sated  with'  reading  anecdotes  de 
picting  the  extent  of  his  early  privations,  and  dwelling  on  illus 
trations  which  presented  lumber-yards  in  which  he  had  slept, 
and  the  fagades  of  tumble-down  tenements  in  which  he  had  first 
beheld  the  light  of  day,  he  was  a  modest  source  of  income. 
Any  lumber-yard  or  any  tenement  sufficiently  dilapidated  would 
serve  as  a  model ;  and  the  fact  that  in  the  shifting  architectural 
life  of  New  York  the  actual  original  scenes  of  the  incidents  had 
been  demolished  and  built  upon  by  new  apartment-houses,  or 
new  railroad  stations,  or  new  factories  seventy-five  stories  high, 
was  an  unobstructing  triviality.  Accounts  of  his  manner  of 
conducting  himself  in  European  courts  to  which  he  had  sup 
posedly  been  bidden,  of  his  immense  popularity  in  glittering 
circles,  of  his  finely  democratic  bearing  when  confronted  by 
emperors  surrounded  by  their  guilty  splendors,  were  the  joy  of 
remote  villages  and  towns.  A  thrifty  and  young  minor  novelist 
hastily  incorporated  him  in  a  serial,  and  syndicated  it  upon 
the  spot  under  the  title  of  "  Living  or  Dead."  Among  its  espe 
cial  public  it  was  a  success  of  such  a  nature  as  betrayed  its 
author  into  as  hastily  writing  a  second  romance,  which  not 
being  rendered  stimulating  by  a  foundation  of  fact  failed  to 
repeat  his  triumph. 

T.  Tembarom,  reading  in  the  library  at  Temple  Barholm  the 
first  newspapers  sent  from  New  York,  smiled  widely. 

"You  see  they've  got  to  say  something,  Jem,"  he  explained. 
"  It  's  too  big  a  scoop  to  be  passed  over.  Something  '&  got  to  be 
turned  in.  And  it  means  money  to  the  fellows,  too.  It 's  good 
copy." 

"  Suppose,"  suggested  Jem,  watching  him  with  interest, 
<e  you  were  to  write  the  facts  yourself  and  pass  them  on  to  some 
decent  chap  who  'd  be  glad  to  get  them." 

"  Glad ! "  Tembarom  flushed  with  delight.  "  Any  chap 
would  be  'way  up  in  the  air  at  the  chance.  It 's  the  best  kind  of 
stuff.  Would  n't  you  mind  ?  Are  you  sure  you  would  n't  ?  " 
He  was  the  warhorse  snuffing  battle  from  afar. 

Jem  Temple  Barholm  laughed  outright  at  the  gleam  in  his 
eyes. 


T.  TEMBAEOM  511 

"  No,  I  should  n't  care  a  hang,  dear  fellow.  And  the  fact 
that  I  objected  would  not  stop  the  story." 

"  No,  it  would  n't,  by  gee !  Say,  I  '11  get  Ann  to  help  me,  and 
we  '11  send  it  to  the  man  who  took  my  place  on  the  Earth. 
It  '11  mean  board  and  boots  to  him  for  a  month  if  he  works  it 
right.  And  it  '11  be  doing  a  good  turn  to  Galton,  too.  I  shall 
be  glad  to  see  old  Galton  when  I  go  back." 

"  You  are  quite  sure  you  want  to  go  back  ?  "  inquired  Jem. 
A  certain  glow  of  feeling  was  always  in  his  eyes  when  he  turned 
them  on  T.  Tembarom. 

"  Go  back  I  I  should  smile !  Of  course  I  shall  go  back. 
I  've  got  to  get  busy  for  Hutchinson  and  I  've  got  to  get  busy 
for  myself.  I  guess  there  '11  be  work  to  do  that  '11  take  me  half 
over  the  world;  but  I'm  going  back  first.  Ann's  going  with 
me." 

But  there  was  no  reference  to  a  return  to  New  York  when 
the  Sunday  Earth  and  other  widely  circulated  weekly  sheets 
gave  prominence  to  the  marriage  of  Mr.  Temple  Temple  Bar- 
holm  and  Miss  Hutchinson,  only  child  and  heiress  of  Mr.  Joseph 
Hutchinson,  the  celebrated  inventor.  From  a  newspaper  point 
of  view,  the  wedding  had  been  rather  unfairly  quiet,  and  it  waa 
necessary  to  fill  space  with  a  revival  of  the  renowned  story,  with 
pictures  of  bride  and  bridegroom,  and  of  Temple  Barholm  sur 
rounded  by  ancestral  oaks.  A  thriving  business  would  have  been 
done  by  the  reporters  if  an  ocean  greyhound  had  landed  the  pair 
at  the  dock  some  morning,  and  snap-shots  could  have  been  taken 
as  they  crossed  the  gangway,  and  wearing  apparel  described. 
But  hope  of  such  fortune  was  swept  away  by  the  closing  para 
graph,  which  stated  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Temple  Barholm  would 
"  spend  the  next  two  months  in  motoring  through  Italy  and 
Spain  in  their  90  h.  p.  Panhard." 

It  was  T.  Tembarom  who  sent  this  last  item  privately  to 
Galton. 

"  It 's  not  true,"  his  letter  added,  "  but  what  I  'm  going  to  do 
is  nobody's  business  but  mine  and  my  wife 's,  and  this  will  suit 
people  just  as  well."  And  then  he  confided  to  Galton  the  thing 
which  was  the  truth. 


612  T.  TEMBAROM 

The  St.  Francesca  apartment-house  was  a  very  new  one, 
situated  on  a  corner  of  an  as  yet  sparsely  built  but  rapidly 
spreading  avenue  above  the  "  100th  Streets  " — many  numbers 
above  them.  There  was  a  frankly  unfinished  air  about  the 
neighborhood,  but  here  and  there  a  "  store  "  had  broken  forth  and 
valiantly  displayed  necessities,  and  even  articles  verging  upon 
the  economically  ornamental.  It  was  plainly  imperative  that 
the  idea  should  be  suggested  that  there  were  on  the  spot  sources 
of  supply  not  requiring  the  immediate  employment  of  the 
services  of  the  elevated  railroad  in  the  achievement  of  purchase, 
and  also  that  enterprise  rightly  encouraged  might  develop  into 
being  equal  to  all  demands.  Here  and  there  an  exceedingly 
fresh  and  clean  "  market  store,"  brilliant  with  the  highly  colored 
labels  adorning  tinned  soups  and  meats  and  edibles  in  glass 
jars,  alluringly  presented  itself  to  the  passer-by.  The  elevated 
railroad  perched  upon  iron  supports,  and  with  iron  stairways 
so  tall  that  they  looked  almost  perilous,  was  a  prominent  feature 
of  the  landscape.  There  were  stretches  of  waste  ground,  and 
high  backgrounds  of  bits  of  country  and  woodland  to  be  seen. 
The  rush  of  New  York  traffic  had  not  yet  reached  the  streets, 
and  the  avenue  was  of  an  agreeable  suburban  cleanliness  and 
calm.  People  who  lived  in  upper  stories  could  pride  themselves 
on  having  "views  of  the  river."  These  they  laid  stress  upon 
when  it  was  hinted  that  they  "lived  a  long  way  uptown." 

The  St.  Francesca  was  built  of  light-brown  stone  and  deco 
rated  with  much  ornate  molding.  It  was  fourteen  stories  high, 
and  was  supplied  with  ornamental  fire-escapes.  It  was  "  no 
slouch  of  a  building."  Everything  decorative  which  could  be 
done  for  it  had  been  done.  The  entrance  was  almost  imposing, 
and  a  generous  lavishness  in  the  way  of  cement  mosaic  flooring 
and  new  and  thick  red  carpet  struck  the  eye  at  once.  The 
grill-work  of  the  elevator  was  of  fresh,  bright  blackness,  picked 
out  with  gold,  and  the  colored  elevator-boy  wore  a  blue  livery 
with  brass  buttons.  Persons  of  limited  means  who  were  willing 
to  discard  the  excitements  of  "  downtown  "  got  a  good  deal  for 
their  money,  and  frequently  found  themselves  secretly  surprised 
and  uplifted  by  the  atmosphere  of  luxury  which  greeted  them 
when  they  entered  their  red-carpeted  hall.  It  was  wonderful, 


T.  TEMBAKOM  513 

they  said,  congratulating  one  another  privately,  how  much  com 
fort  and  style  you  got  in  a  New  York  apartment-house  after  you 
passed  the  "  ISOths." 

On  a  certain  afternoon  T.  Tembarom,  with  his  hat  on  the 
back  of  his  head  and  his  arms  full  of  parcels,  having  leaped  off 
the  "  L  "  when  it  stopped  at  the  nearest  station,  darted  up  and 
down  the  iron  stairways  until  he  reached  the  ground,  and  then 
hurried  across  the  avenue  to  the  St.  Francesca.  He  made 
long  strides,  and  two  or  three  times  grinned  as  if  thinking  of 
something  highly  amusing ;  and  once  or  twice  he  began  to  whistle 
and  checked  himself.  He  looked  approvingly  at  the  tall  build 
ing  and  its  solidly  balustraded  entrance-steps  as  he  approached 
it,  and  when  he  entered  the  red-carpeted  hall  he  gave  greeting  to 
a  small  mulatto  boy  in  livery. 

"  Hello,  Tom !  How 's  everything  ?  "  he  inquired,  hilariously. 
"  You  taking  good  care  of  this  building  ?  Let  any  more  eight- 
room  apartments?  You've  got  to  keep  right  on  the  job,  you 
know.  Can't  have  you  loafing  because  you've  got  those  brass 
buttons." 

The  small  page  showed  his  teeth  in  gleeful  appreciation  of 
their  friendly  intimacy. 

"  Yassir.  That 's  so,"  he  answered.  "  Mis'  Barom  she  'a 
waitin'  for  you.  Them  carpets  is  come,  sir.  Tracy's  wagon 
brought  'em  'bout  an  hour  ago.  I  told  her  I  'd  help  her  lay 
'em  if  she  wanted  me  to,  but  she  said  you  was  comin'  with  the 
hammer  an'  tacks.  'T  war  n't  that  she  thought  I  was  too  little. 
It  was  jest  that  there  was  n't  no  tacks.  I  tol'  her  jest  call  me 
in  any  time  to  do  anythin'  she  want  done,  an'  she  said  she  would." 

"  She  '11  do  it,"  said  T.  Tembarom.  "  You  just  keep  on  tap. 
I  'm  just  counting  on  you  and  Light  here,"  taking  in  the  ele 
vator-boy  as  he  stepped  into  the  elevator,  "to  look  after  her 
when  I  'm  out." 

The  elevator-boy  grinned  also,  and  the  elevator  shot  up  the 
shaft,  the  numbers  of  the  floors  passing  almost  too  rapidly  to 
be  distinguished.  The  elevator  was  new  and  so  was  the  boy, 
and  it  was  the  pride  of  his  soul  to  land  each  passenger  at  his 
own  particular  floor,  as  if  he  had  been  propelled  upward  from 
a  catapult.  But  he  did  not  go  too  rapidly  for  this  passenger,  at 


514  T.  TEMBAEOM 

least,  though  a  paper  parcel  or  BO  was  dropped  in  the  transit  and 
had  to  be  picked  up  when  he  stopped  at  floor  fourteen. 

The  red  carpets  were  on  the  corridor  there  also,  and  fresh  paint 
and  paper  were  on  the  walls.  A  few  yards  from  the  elevator  he 
stopped  at  a  door  and  opened  it  with  a  latch-key,  beaming  with 
inordinate  delight. 

The  door  opened  into  a  narrow  corridor  leading  into  a  small 
apartment,  the  furniture  of  which  was  not  yet  set  in  order.  A 
roll  of  carpet  and  some  mats  stood  in  a  corner,  chairs  and  tables 
with  burlaps  round  their  legs  waited  here  and  there,  a  cot  with 
a  mattress  on  it,  evidently  to  be  transformed  into  a  "couch," 
held  packages  of  bafflingly  irregular  shapes  and  sizes.  In  the 
tiny  kitchen  new  pots  and  pans  and  kettles,  some  still  wrapped 
in  paper,  tilted  themselves  at  various  angles  on  the  gleaming  new 
range  or  on  the  closed  lids  of  the  doll-sized  stationary  wash-tubs. 

Little  Ann  had  been  very  busy,  and  some  of  the  things  were 
unpacked.  She  had  been  sweeping  and  mopping  floors  and 
polishing  up  remote  corners,  and  she  had  on  a  big  white  pina 
fore-apron  with  long  sleeves,  which  transformed  her  into  a  sort 
of  small  female  chorister.  She  came  into  the  narrow  corridor 
with  a  broom  in  her  hand,  her  periwinkle-blue  gaze  as  thrilled 
as  an  excited  child's  when  it  attacks  the  arrangement  of  its  first 
doll's  house.  Her  hair  was  a  little  ruffled  where  it  showed  below 
the  white  kerchief  she  had  tied  over  her  head.  The  warm,  daisy 
pinkness  of  her  cheeks  was  amazing. 

"  Hello !  "  called  out  Tembarom  at  sight  of  her.  "  Are  you 
there  yet?  I  don't  believe  it." 

"  Yes,  I  'm  here,"  she  answered,  dimpling  at  him. 

"  Not  you !  "  he  said.  "  You  could  n't  be !  You  've  melted 
away.  Let 's  see/'  And  he  slid  his  parcels  down  on  the  cot  and 
lifted  her  up  in  the  air  as  if  she  had  been  a  baby.  "  How  can  I 
tell,  anyhow?"  he  laughed  out.  "You  don't  weigh  anything, 
and  when  a  fellow  squeezes  you  he  ?s  got  to  look  out  what  he 's 
doing." 

He  did  not  seem  to  "look  out"  particularly  when  he  caught 
her  to  him  in  a  hug  into  which  she  appeared  charmingly  to  melt. 
She  made  herself  part  of  it,  with  soft  arms  which  went  at  once 
round  his  neck  and  held  him. 


T.  TEMBAKOM  515 

"  Say !  "  he  broke  forth  when  he  set  her  down.  "  Do  you  think 
I  'm  not  glad  to  get  back  ?  " 

"  No,  I  don't,  Tern/'  she  answered,  "  I  know  how  glad  you  are 
by  the  way  I  'm  glad  myself." 

"  You  know  just  everything !  "  he  ejaculated,  looking  her  over, 
"  just  every  darned  thing  —  God  bless  you !  But  don't  you  melt 
away,  will  you  ?  That 's  what  I  'm  afraid  of.  I  '11  do  any  old 
thing  on  earth  if  you'll  just  stay." 

That  was  his  great  joke, —  though  she  knew  it  was  not  so  great 
a  joke  as  it  seemed, —  that  he  would  not  believe  that  she  was  real, 
and  believed  that  she  might  disappear  at  any  moment.  They 
had  been  married  three  weeks,  and  she  still  knew  when  she  saw 
him  pause  to  look  at  her  that  he  would  suddenly  seize  and  hold 
her  fast,  trying  to  laugh,  sometimes  not  with  entire  success. 

"  Do  you  know  how  long  it  was  ?  Do  you  know  how  far 
away  that  big  place  was  from  everything  in  the  world  ? "  he 
had  said  once.  "  And  me  holding  on  and  gritting  my  teeth  ? 
And  not  a  soul  to  open  my  mouth  to!  The  old  duke  was  the 
only  one  who  understood,  anyhow.  He  'd  been  there." 

"  I  '11  stay,"  she  answered  now,  standing  before  him  as  he 
sat  down  on  the  end  of  the  "couch."  She  put  a  firm,  warm- 
palmed  little  hand  on  each  side  of  his  face,  and  held  it  between 
them  as  she  looked  deep  into  his  eyes.  "You  look  at  me, 
Tern  —  and  see." 

"  I  believe  it  now,"  he  said,  "  but  I  shan't  in  fifteen  minutes." 

"  We  're  both  right-down  silly,"  she  said,  her  soft,  cosy  laugh 
breaking  out.  "  Look  round  this  room  and  see  what  we  've  got 
to  do.  Let 's  begin  this  minute.  Did  you  get  the  groceries  ?  " 

He  sprang  up  and  began  to  go  over  his  packages  triumphantly. 

"Tea,  coffee,  sugar,  pepper,  salt,  beefsteak,"  he  called  out. 

"  We  can't  have  beefsteak  often,"  she  said,  soberly,  "  if  we  're 
going  to  do  it  on  fifteen  a  week." 

"  Good  Lord,  no !  "  he  gave  back  to  her,  hilariously.  "  But 
this  is  a  Fifth  Avenue  feed." 

"  Let 's  take  them  into  the  kitchen  and  put  them  into  the  cup 
board,  and  untie  the  pots  and  pans."  She  was  suddenly  quite 
absorbed  and  businesslike.  "  We  must  make  the  room  tidy  and 
tack  down  the  carpet,  and  then  cook  the  dinner." 


516  T.  TEMBAROM 

He  followed  her  and  obeyed  her  like  an  enraptured  boy.  The 
wonder  of  her  was  that,  despite  its  tmarranged  air,  the  tiny  place 
was  already  cleared  and  set  for  action.  She  had  done  it  all 
before  she  had  swept  out  the  undiscovered  corners.  Everything 
was  near  the  spot  to  which  it  belonged.  There  was  nothing 
to  move  or  drag  out  of  the  way. 

"  I  got  it  all  ready  to  put  straight,"  she  said,  "  but  I  wanted 
you  to  finish  it  with  me.  It  would  n't  have  seemed  right  if  I  'd 
done  it  without  you.  It  wouldn't  have  been  as  much  ours" 

Then  came  active  service.  She  was  like  a  small  general  com 
manding  an  army  of  one.  They  put  things  on  shelves;  they 
hung  things  on  hooks;  they  found  places  in  which  things  be 
longed;  they  set  chairs  and  tables  straight;  and  then,  after 
dusting  and  polishing  them,  set  them  at  a  more  imposing  angle ; 
they  unrolled  the  little  green  carpet  and  tacked  down  its  corners ; 
and  transformed  the  cot  into  a  "couch"  by  covering  it  with 
what  Tracy's  knew  as  a  "  throw "  and  adorning  one  end  of  it 
with  cotton-stuffed  cushions.  They  hung  little  photogravures 
on  the  walls  and  strung  up  some  curtains  before  the  good-sized 
window,  which  looked  down  from  an  enormous  height  at  the  top 
of  four-storied  houses,  and  took  in  beyond  them  the  river  and  the 
shore  beyond.  Because  there  was  no  fireplace  Tembarom 
knocked  up  a  shelf,  and,  covering  it  with  a  scarf  (from  Tracy's), 
set  up  some  inoffensive  ornaments  on  it  and  flanked  them  with 
photographs  of  Jem  Temple  Barholm,  Lady  Joan  in  court  dress, 
Miss  Alicia  in  her  prettiest  cap,  and  the  great  house  with  its 
huge  terrace  and  the  griffins. 

"  Ain't  she  a  looker  ?  "  Tembarom  said  of  Lady  Joan.  "  And 
ain't  Jem  a  looker,  too  ?  Gee !  they  're  a  pair.  Jem  thinks  this 
honeymoon  stunt  of  ours  is  the  best  thing  he  ever  heard  of  — 
us  fixing  ourselves  up  here  just  like  we  would  have  done  if 
nothing  had  ever  happened,  and  we  'd  had  to  do  it  on  fifteen  per. 
Say,"  throwing  an  arm  about  her,  "  are  you  getting  as  much  fun 
out  of  it  as  if  we  had  to,  as  if  I  might  lose  my  job  any  minute, 
and  we  might  get  fired  out  of  here  because  we  could  n't  pay  the 
rent  ?  I  believe  you  'd  rather  like  to  think  I  might  ring  you 
into  some  sort  of  trouble,  so  that  you  could  help  me  to  get  you 
out  of  it." 


"  You  look  at  me,  Tern— and  see 


T.  TEMBAEOM  517 

"That's  nonsense,"  she  answered,  with  a  sweet,  untruthful 
little  face.  "  I  should  n't  be  very  sensible  if  I  was  n't  glad  you 
couldn't  lose  your  job.  Father  and  I  are  your  job  now." 

He  laughed  aloud.  This  was  the  innocent,  fantastic  truth 
of  it.  They  had  chosen  to  do  this  thing  —  to  spend  their  honey 
moon  in  this  particular  way,  and  there  was  no  reason  why  they 
should  not.  The  little  dream  which  had  been  of  such  unattain 
able  proportions  in  the  days  of  Mrs.  Bowse's  boarding-house 
could  be  realized  to  its  fullest.  No  one  in  the  St.  Francesca 
apartments  knew  that  the  young  honey-mooners  in  the  five- 
roomed  apartment  were  other  than  Mr.  and  Mrs.  T.  Barholm,  as 
recorded  on  the  tablet  of  names  in  the  entrance.  Hutchinson 
knew,  and  Miss  Alicia  knew,  and  Jem  Temple  Barholm,  and 
Lady  Joan.  The  Duke  of  Stone  knew,  and  thought  the  old- 
fashionedness  of  the  idea  quite  the  last  touch  of  modernity. 

"  Did  you  see  any  one  who  knew  you  when  you  were  out  ?  " 
Little  Ann  asked. 

"No,  and  if  I  had  they  wouldn't  have  believed  they'd  seen 
me,  because  the  papers  told  them  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Temple 
Barholm  are  spending  their  honeymoon  motoring  through  Spain 
in  their  ninety-horse-power  Panhard." 

"Let's  go  and  get  dinner,"  said  Little  Ann. 

They  went  into  the  doll's-house  kitchen  and  cooked  the  din 
ner.  Little  Ann  broiled  steak  and  fried  potato  chips,  and  T. 
Tembarom  produced  a  wonderful  custard  pie  he  had  bought  at 
a  confectioner's.  He  set  the  table,  and  put  a  bunch  of  yellow 
daisies  in  the  middle  of  it. 

"  We  could  n't  do  it  every  day  on  fifteen  per  week,"  he  said. 
"If  we  wanted  flowers  we  should  have  to  grow  them  in  old 
tomato-cans." 

Little  Ann  took  off  her  chorister's-gown  apron  and  her  ker 
chief,  and  patted  and  touched  up  her  hair.  She  was  pink  to 
her  ears,  and  had  several  new  dimples;  and  when  she  sat  down 
opposite  him,  as  she  had  sat  that  first  night  at  Mrs.  Bowse's 
boarding-house  supper,  Tembarom  stared  at  her  and  caught  his 
breath. 

"  You  are  there  ?  "  he  said,  "  ain't  you  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  am/'  she  answered. 


518  T.  TEMBAROM 

When  they  had  cleared  the  table  and  washed  the  dishes,  and 
had  left  the  toy  kitchen  spick  and  span,  the  ten  million  lights  in 
'New  York  were  lighted  and  casting  their  glow  above  the  city. 
Tembarom  sat  down  on  the  Adams  chair  before  the  window  and 
took  Little  Ann  on  his  knee.  She  was  of  the  build  which  settles 
comfortably  and  with  ease  into  soft  curves  whose  nearness  is  a 
caress.  Looked  down  at  from  the  fourteenth  story  of  the  St. 
Francesca  apartments,  the  lights  strung  themselves  along  lines 
of  streets,  crossing  and  recrossing  one  another;  they  glowed  and 
blazed  against  masses  of  buildings,  and  they  hung  at  enormous 
heights  in  mid-air  here  and  there,  apparently  without  any  sup 
port.  Everywhere  was  the  glow  and  dazzle  of  their  brilliancy 
of  light,  with  the  distant  bee  hum  of  a  nearing  elevated  train, 
at  intervals  gradually  deepening  into  a  roar.  The  river  looked 
miles  below  them,  and  craft  with  sparks  or  blaze  of  light  went 
slowly  or  swiftly  to  and  fro. 

"  It 's  like  a  dream,"  said  Little  Ann,  after  a  long  silence. 
"  And  we  are  up  here  like  birds  in  a  nest." 

He  gave  her  a  closer  grip. 

"  Miss  Alicia  once  said  that  when  I  was  almost  down  and 
out,"  he  said.  "  It  gave  me  a  jolt.  She  said  a  place  like  this 
would  be  like  a  nest.  Wherever  we  go, —  and  we'll  have  to 
go  to  lots  of  places  and  live  in  lots  of  different  ways, —  we  '11  keep 
this  place,  and  some  time  we'll  bring  her  here  and  let  her  try 
it.  I  've  just  got  to  show  her  New  York." 

"  Yes,  let  us  keep  it,"  said  Little  Ann,  drowsily,  "  just  for  a 
nest." 

There  was  another  silence,  and  the  lights  on  the  river  far 
below  still  twinkled  or  blazed  as  they  drifted  to  and  fro. 

"  You  are  there,  ain't  you  ?  "  said  Tembarom  in  a  half- whisper. 

"  Yes  —  I  am,"  murmured  Little  Ann. 

But  she  had  had  a  busy  day,  and  when  he  looked  down  at 
her,  she  hung  softly  against  his  shoulder,  fast  asleep. 


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